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THIS >^U]VLBER CONTAINS 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY 

By i^IRNH WOODS 

Author of ^^The Amazons” and ^^A Modern Magdalene.” 


O O M: I-. E3 T E3 . 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

CONTENTS 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY 

Some Bird-Songs ..... 
On an Etruscan Vase (Quatrain) 

On the Santa Fe Trail 
French Pioneers in America 
Earning a Living in China . 

Marthy’s Dress 

Drift-Wood (Couplet) .... 
Early Man in America .... 
Life in the Cotton Belt 
A “Star Route” Case .... 
The Beginnings of Liberty in New York 
My Pennsylvanian ..... 
Hard Times among the Heroines 


. Virna Woods . . 577-645 

. Henry Oldys . . . 646 

. Harrison S. Morris . . 656 

. . William Thomson . . 657 

. Alva Fitzpatrick . .663 

. . Dora E. W. Spratt . . 670 

. . Carrie Blake Morgan . -677 

Clarence Urmy . . .682 

. Harvey B. B ashore . .683 

. Frances Albert Doughty . 687 

. Mary E. Stickney . . 694 

Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer 703 
. Joseph A. Altsheler . . 707 

. . Eva A. Madden . . .716 


PRICE TWENTY-FIVE CENTS 

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Copyright, 1897, by J. B. Lippincott Company. Entered at Philadelphia Post-Office as second-class matter. 



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PHILADELPHIA. 


Jason Hildreth’s Identity, 


VIRNA WOODS, 

M 

AUTHOR OF “THE AMAZONS” AND “A MODERN MAGDALENE.^' 



PHILADELPHIA; 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 


Copyright, 1897, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 


Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 


LIPPINCOTT’S 

]y[ONTHLY ]y[AGAZINE. 

MAY. 18 97. 

JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


I. 

H e awoke one morning and looked with vague interest about the 
unfamiliar room. A round marble-topped table, with several 
bottles of medicine on it, stood by his bed ; a wash-stand was set 
against the opposite wall, and in one corner was a large wooden ward- 
robe. Two or three cane-seated chairs completed the furniture ; the 
walls were unadorned, save with a half-length mirror that hung over 
the bare mantel. The blind was drawn down over the partly opened 
window, and he heard a faint rumble, as though from a city street, far 
below. 

must be in a lodging-house,^^ he thought; but farther than this 
his mind refused to go. It may be Paris, or Melbourne, or New 
York,’^ he reflected, with grim amusement. 

The door opened, and a woman tiptoed into the room, carrying 
some towels over her arm. She was followed by a young man, who 
advanced to the bed and started back in surprise. 

The delirium is broken,^^ he said. 

He picked up one of the bottles on the table and poured out a 
spoonful of the medicine. The sick man opened his mouth and swal- 
lowed the dose obediently. 

‘‘ Where am I he queried, looking up at the attendant, whom he 
judged to be a professional nurse. 

“ You are in San Francisco, was the reply ; but the doctor said 
I was not to allow you to talk.^^ 

The patient closed his eyes, and drifted from his dreamy thoughts 
so slowly that he did not know when they had merged into veritable 
dreams. 

When he awoke again, it was early evening. The soft light of a 
shaded lamp burned on the table beside him. The nurse stood at the 
foot of the bed, and a man bent over him. It must be the doctor, for 
he had been feeling his pulse. The face was dimly familiar to him, as 

679 


580 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


though he had seen it in his dreams. It was a fair, bright, kindly 
face, still young ; and the voice that belonged to it was cheery and 
pleasant. 

How do you feel it said, as the patient looked up with ques- 
tioning eyes. 

I feel as though I had just been born,” was the reply : he was 
very weak, and knew neither where nor who he was. 

The doctor laughed and nodded his head. 

The fever has left you, and you have no strength,” he said ; but 
you will soon be all right. And then,” he added, with a chuckle, ^^you 
will have to give an account of yourself, for you seem to have dropped 
out of the clouds.” 

He gave some directions to the nurse and went away. The patient 
closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, that the attendant might not 
disturb him ; for he wanted to think. 

He remembered, after a little while, that the nurse had told him 
he was in San Francisco; but what the city looked like, or how he had 
come there, he could not tell. His idea of the place, he knew, must 
be the old idea he had when a boy at school, for it was a confused 
combination of sheep-men and sombreros and poker and pistols ; but 
at the same time he heard the sound of car-bells and the noise of traffic 
on the street below. 

Who am I ? who am I ?” he repeated over and over to himself. 

He half unclosed his eyes and looked at his wasted hand as it lay 
on the coverlet. It was long and slender, and evidently unused to 
manual labor. 

I cannot be a working-man,” he thought. I wonder if I am 
educated.” 

Then he tried to test himself; and, swiftly and inconsequently, 
isolated facts began to pass like a Mardi-Gras procession through his 
mind; 

Columbus discovered America in 1492 ; water is composed of two 
parts hydrogen to one part oxygen ; the square of the hypothenuse of 
a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other 
two sides.” 

Then he tried to repeat to himself the process of the circulation 
of the blood ; and he remembered that the astronomers were theorizing 
about establishing communication with Mars. Next he found himself 
repeating automatically certain rules of Latin grammar that he must 
have learned when a boy ; and immediately after he began to formu- 
late his thoughts in the French language. 

^^Well,” he thought, with inward satisfaction,^^! seem to have 
been pretty well educated. I wonder if I am English, or American, 
or French.” 

Then a sense of utter isolation swept in upon him with intolerable 
pain. He was alone, cut off from his friends, who were perhaps waiting 
anxiously for tidings of him ; unable to readjust himself to his posi- 
tion in the world. It was as though he were blind or dumb. The 
circuit was broken that connected him with the rest of mankind. He 
was terribly alone. 


JASON HILDRETH 'S IDENTITY. 5gl 

In the centre of immensities, in the conflux of eternities,^’ he 
murmured, involuntarily. 

‘^Do you want anything?” asked the nurse, rising and going to 
him. 

The sick man shook his head impatiently. He wanted to think 
undisturbed. 

Again and again he tried to gain some clue to his identity, but in 
vain. He seemed to remember all the general truths that he had ever 
learned, to recollect books he had read, pictures he had seen, music to 
which he had listened ; but all personal associations had been obliterated 
from his mind. Whether or not he had a family, he did not know ; 
not a single face came to him from all the circle of friends and ac- 
quaintances he must once have possessed. He wondered how old he 
was. He thought, from his hands, and from his teeth, which seemed 
perfect, that he must yet be young. 

A sudden fear broke into the current of his thought. The doctor 
had said that when he was stronger he must give an account of him- 
self. He could not do so, and he was afraid he would be considered 
mad. That he was not mad, and that the memory of his life would 
some time return to him, he felt sure ; but in the mean time he must 
face the danger of incarceration in an asylum. To prevent such a 
possibility, he must give himself a name and construct for himself a 
biography. He would defer the relation of the fiction as long as pos- 
sible, in the hope that his true name and history would recur to him ; 
but he would be prepared, if the doctor should seek to carry out his 
laughing threat. So he lay in the quiet of feigned slumber, and 
thought out the apocryphal narrative he was later to give to his new 
friends. 

It was later in the evening that he heard the murmur of voices in 
the hall just outside his room. The attendant had gone out for a few 
moments, and two women, probably maids in the establishment, were 
standing just outside his door, which was slightly ajar. 

He hasn’t said a word about his friends or asked them to send 
word to any one,” one of the voices murmured. 

No,” said the other, in the same cautious undertone; ^‘but, 
whether he has friends or not, he has money. Mrs. McFall says there 
was eight hundred dollars in his valise. And lucky for him, or he’d 
been taken to the county hospital.” 

A good-looking young man he is, too,” continued the first voice, 
^^for all he’s that poor you can a’most see through him. It’s queer, 
now, isn’t it, that there was never a letter nor a card on him at all. 
But we’ll know all about it when Dr. Richmond comes. Trust me to 
get it out of Peter, for all he’s a professional nurse.” 

The girls passed down the hallway, and the voices became in- 
audible. 

The patient lay back and closed his eyes wearily. The test was 
coming sooner than he expected ; and already his strange reticence had 
been noticed. Had he a mother, or a sweetheart, or a wife ? His 
heart thrilled at the thought, but no answering chord of memory stirre4 
in his braiu. 


582 


JASON HILDRETH \S IDENTITY. 


The Durse came back and resumed his patient watch by the window : 
the monotony of an hour was measured by the ticking of the clock. 

The feigned sleep of the patient was disturbed at last by the entrance 
of the doctor. 

YouVe better to~night/^ he said, as he bent a moment over the 
bed. But before he could make any further remark he was interrupted 
by the patient himself, who had decided to take the initiative in the 
conversation and use the cue the housemaids had unconsciously given 
him. 

1 have been w^orrying about a little matter, doctor,’’ he said, 
since I have regained consciousness ; and I wish to relieve my mind 
about it. I had about eight hundred dollars in my valise ” 

It is all right,” said the doctor, smiling : it is locked up in the 
safe down-stairs ; that is, the most of it. What we have had to use 
has been kept account of, and you shall see that it is all right.” 

^^Then I should like to know how I came here; for I cannot 
remember anything about it.” 

“ No wonder you can’t remember,” said the doctor, delighted that 
his mysterious patient was beginning to talk at last. You were 
found lying half clothed on the pier at the Pacific Mail wharf, sand- 
bagged and robbed. The fiends must have been frightened away, or 
they would probably have pitched you into the bay. You would have 
been taken to the Receiving Hospital, had you not been recognized by 
the bell-boy here as a lodger of Mrs. McFall’s. But no one knew 
who you were, as you had just come the day before, and had given no 
name : so it was impossible to send word to your friends.” 

Didn’t I talk in my delirium?” the sick man asked. 

Yes, you talked a great deal,” the doctor replied, but nothing 
sensible that we could understand. Half the time you spoke in French. 
You said a great deal about ma petite cMriey but you mentioned no 
names.” 

wonder if I am French,” the patient thought; and he hastily 
interpolated in the narrative he had prepared an explanation of his use 
of that language. 

^^But my letters,” he ventured to suggest, feeling out in a new 
direction ; surely you must have found my name somewhere.” 

No,” the doctor replied ; whatever letters and papers you had 
must have been on your person when you were robbed, and were taken 
with your other valuables. There was nothing whatever by which 
we could identify you. The enly writing we could find among your 
possessions was a verse written on a slip of paper in a book of 
German poetry. A stanza was written in German in a masculine 
hand, and the translation of the stanza was written below in a woman’s 
writing.” 

Evidently I read German,” said the sick man to himself. What 
next? I am afraid to go on with this invevstigation, lest I find my- 
self to be an Arab or a Chinaman.” But aloud he asked to see the 
paper. 

When it was handed to him, he read, in clear, large German script, 
the words, — 


JASON HILDRETH S IDENTITY. 


583 


Seele des Menschen, 

Wie gleichst du dem Wasser; 

Schicksal des Menschen, 

Wie gleichst du dem Wind. 

And below it was written, in a clear, flowing English hand, the trans- 
lation : 

Soul of man, 

How like the water ! 

Fate of man, 

How like the wind ! 

He stared at the paper, struggling to connect the familiar writing 
with some associated ideas, until he saw that his silence was observed. 
Then he spoke abruptly. 

The German,’’ he said, is my own writing ; the translation is 
that of a friend.” 

He spoke carelessly, but his thoughts were perturbed. 

Truly, indeed,” he reflected, my soul is like the water and my 
fate like the wind ; for I know not whence I come nor whither I go.” 

Do you not wish,” said the doctor, as the patient volunteered no 
further remark, “ to have word sent to some of your friends ?” 

It is not worth while to do so until I can write myself,” the sick 
man replied. ^^My friends are all in the East, — in New York,” he 
added, as the doctor looked at him inquiringly. ‘‘I have no family. 
My nearest relative is a cousin on my father’s side. I came out for a 
pleasure-trip, with the idea that if I liked the place I would remain. 
You see, I am perfectly free, and can follow my whims.” 

Excuse me,” said the doctor, with much interest, but are you 
French ?” 

My mother was F rench,” was the reply, and I have spoken the 
language from my infancy.” 

While they were talking, the door had been cautiously opened, and 
Mrs. McFall’s ample figure had slipped silently into the room. A few 
moments later, the two maids whose voices the sick man had heard in 
the hall had returned and stopped again at the partially opened door. 
He became aware of the presence of his silent auditors, and his ner- 
vousness and fear of discovery increased. 

I could not be more anxious to deceive them if I had committed 
a crime,” he thought. 

He lay silent, still hoping that they would not ask his name ; and 
yet he was uneasily aware that his reticence seemed strange to them. 
A dozen names he had thought over and rejected : some seemed so 
common as to excite suspicion of an alias ; others were foreign, or in 
some way startlingly strange. At last he had settled, almost at 
random, upon one that seemed to possess individuality without being 
sufficiently peculiar to provoke comment. He had felt, somehow, 
that a great deal depended upon this selection of a name ; and now 
that it was trembling on his lips, he felt a strange distrust of it. But 
he had no time to reconsider it or cast it aside; for the doctor leaned 
over him and asked his name. He saw Mrs. McFall bend forward 


584 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


expectantly and the nurse lift his head ; outside the door he heard the 
rustle of a dress. But he looked up with well- feigned composure and 
answered quietly. 

My name is Jason Hildreth/’ he said. 


II. 

The days passed into weeks, the weeks into months, and Jason 
Hildreth had entirely recovered from his illness. So thought the 
doctor, who had become his friend; and so thought the circle of 
acquaintances he had made in the strange city. 

He was a popular man, for he was genial and companionable ; but 
even among his most intimate friends he retained his reticence about 
the past. The doctor himself knew no more of his history than he 
had learned the day his patient awoke from delirium. Their intimacy 
began in a common interest in the study of languages and in rare old 
editions ; and Dr. Richmond’s library was soon as free to Jason Hil- 
dreth as to the doctor himself. 

In the early days of his convalescence, the doctor, on one of his 
professional visits, found the patient poring over a philological treatise 
in one of the current magazines ; and as soon as he was able to go out, 
he took him home to show him his library. It was a clear, bright 
day, and the drive through the strange city filled the patient with a 
sense of exhilaration. He breathed in the salt air with a feeling of 
ecstasy ; he gazed delightedly on the curving line of the bay, gleaming 
in the distance, and dotted with sails; and again on the hilly streets, 
rising in terraces, and lined with rows of tall houses, presenting for the 
most part solid fronts of bay-windows. He felt certain that he had 
never seen the city before ; the arrangement of the streets, the hills, 
and the architecture of the buildings, all were unfamiliar to him; and 
the novelty of the scenes interested and charmed him. 

‘‘How does San Francisco compare with New York??’ queried the 
doctor, turning to his companion with a smile. 

“ It is very different,” was the guarded reply ; and the speaker, 
though not the faintest recollection of his former home occurred to him, 
felt that this much was the truth. 

They were driving up one of the fine residence streets, when the 
doctor turned into the drive of a beautiful place, and, calling his boy 
to put up the horse, led Jason into the house. 

He took him at once into his “ den,” which was situated in the 
basement, or ground-floor, of the three-story house, and communicated 
with the library, a much larger room. The “ den” contained nothing 
to indicate the owner’s profession, except a single case of medical books 
treating on obscure diseases that possessed for him more of a scientific 
than a practical interest. 

“ My medical library is in my office down-town,” he said, as his 
visitor glanced about the room ; “ these books are for recreation.” 

Jason glanced over the shelves, and was delighted to find many of 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


585 


his old favorites, not only in Englisli, but also in several Continental 
languages, as well as all the standard and some of the rare works on 
philology. One case of exquisitely carved teak-wood was filled with 
old editions and rare art- works. A secretary stood open, littered with 
papers; near it was a cabinet of fine corals and shells. On a cloth- 
covered table were several beautiful specimens of moths, and a large 
microscope with a piece of fungus on the slide. The easy-chairs that 
were scattered over the room were a confused mass of pillows and news- 
papers and open pamphlets ; a variety of pipes decorated the tables and 
shelves, and a faint aroma of tobacco-smoke pervaded the air. 

In the hour that Jason Hildreth spent looking over the doctor^s 
treasures, their casual acquaintance ripened into a friendship that the 
many vicissitudes of the future were never to disturb. He became a 
frequent visitor at the house, and a great favorite of Miss Vaughn, 
the doctor’s aunt, a lady who had been a belle in her youth, and, with 
her brilliant dark eyes and soft white hair, was still beautiful. In 
fact, she was even now prominent in social functions, and insisted upon 
launching her new favorite in San Francisco society. 

Do you know,” she said to him one day, when they were tete-d,- 
tete, that you are quite a success? You were undoubtedly the lion at 
Mrs. Edwards’s reception.” 

" ^^I am glad to hear it,” he laughed : ^^I have been thinking lately 

that I was an utter failure. You know I am adrift in the world.” 

His homelessness, as was inevitable, appealed to her woman’s 
heart. 

We cannot let you think so,” she quickly rejoined : you know 
we want you to feel at home here.” 

Once she asked him to tell her something of his life beyond the 
narrow outline he had given the doctor ; but he evaded an answer. 

I am glad you came from New York,” she said to him one day : 
I lived there when I was young, and I want you to tell me of the 
changes in my old haunts.” 

Fortunately, his confusion was covered by the entrance of a visitor; 
but on his way home he purchased a map of New York, and spent 
several evenings in hunting up and studying articles descriptive of the 
city. He began to be sorry that he had not named some obscure little 
town as his former home. He was constantly on his guard, however, 
and his conversation with the doctor was usually impersonal and 
always without reference to the past. 

I know him,” the doctor often reflected, in thinking of his friend, 
as intimately as I could know a brother ; and yet of the details of 
his life I know next to nothing.” And there was something about his 
friend that stopped his questions on his lips, although the doctor’s 
stock of curiosity exceeded a little the average. 

“ The most remarkable thing about him,” the doctor’s ruminations 
would continue, is that he is a specialist in so many different lines. 
He is a thorough French and German scholar, and has considerable 
acquaintance with several other languages ; he is an authority on music 
and art ; he is a deep student of history and of politics. He is an 
easy after-dinner orator and a ready conversationalist ; and to all these 


586 


JASON HILDRETH^S IDENTITY. 


attractions he adds the physical accomplishments, for he swims, dances, 
and rides the wheel/’ 

Indeed, it was the very multiplicity of his gifts that had puzzled 
Jason Hildreth himself in the choice of a career. He realized the 
necessity of doing something as soon as he had sufficiently recovered ; 
for whatever property he might have possessed was lost to him now, 
and the small supply of cash he had with him would soon be exhausted. 
He tried in vain to discover what had been his occupation in the old 
forgotten life. That it was not the practice either of medicine or of law 
he soon decided ; for, while the knowledge of these subjects that he 
possessed was more than the average, it was not sufficiently technical to 
be professional. Possibly he had been a professor in some college or 
academy; more probably he had been a gentleman of wealth and 
leisure. 

Finding, however, that he had a facile pen, he devoted himself to 
journalistic work, with steadily increasing success; and after several 
months of alternating hope and despair, he obtained, through the 
influence of Dr. Richmond, a position on one of the great dailies, that 
solved for him the financial problem. 

During all this time he had not abandoned the hope of discovering 
his identity. He had studied the papers of all sections of the country 
for cases of mysterious disappearance. He had even put detectives at 
work on his own case, without revealing his intense personal interest ; 
but all his efforts had been unavailing. 

Twice only he had been startled out of his self-possession by 
questions, — in both cases, those of the doctor. 

In the first instance, he had been speaking of certain deductions 
from philological comparisons, when the doctor interrupted him. 

^^What is your college?” he said. ^^I have always fancied you 
were a Harvard man.” 

I have thought so sometimes myself,” was the unexpected response. 
Then, seeing his companion’s look of astonishment, he hastened to add, 
I mean, of course, I have had sufficient egotism to think I might 
pass for a Harvard graduate. In fact, I am self-educated.” 

The second inadvertence occurred when they were discussing some 
question of art. 

‘‘You have been to Europe, have you not?” the doctor asked. 

“I think I must have been,” was the rejoinder. “I beg your 
pardon,” he went on in confusion ; “ how absent-minded I am ! Of 
course I have been ; but I was quite young at the time, and my im- 
pressions of the trip are unreliable.” 

Meantime the doctor had supplemented his aunt’s social efforts in 
Jason’s behalf by proposing his name at his clubs and showing him 
something of the Bohemian side of the city. He secured his entrance 
into the Golden Gate Club, the Fin de Si^cle, and the Criterion De- 
bating Club. 

The Golden Gate Club was known by its detractors as the Club 
of the Two Hundred, being composed chiefly of the male members of 
fashionable society. It had extensive and elegant club-rooms in a 
desirable part of the city, and was noted for its suppers md banquets. 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 587 

The Fin de Siecle was an out-door club, interested principally in 
bicycle- races. Its rooms included a fine gymnasium and baths. 

The Criterion Club was the most exclusive, being limited to a 
membership of ten. It met twice a month in the homes of the mem- 
bers, to discuss some debatable subject, the members taking turns in 
furnishing the leading paper, and the others commenting upon it. It 
was one of the rules of the club that two men in the same profession 
or business should not belong to the club at the same time, the object 
being to secure as great a diversity of thought and personality as pos- 
sible. The resignation of the editor, who had transferred his labors 
to fields east of the Fockies, provided the vacancy that enabled the 
doctor to propose his friend’s name. The other members were a 
lawyer, a merchant, a prominent educator, a liberal clergyman, a Jewish 
rabbi, a professional politician holding a city office, a cartoonist, and 
a man of leisure who had devoted himself to social reform. Every 
shade of opinion on every conceivable subject was represented, from 
the most intense conservatism to the most extreme socialism, and from 
the rankest materialism to the most transcendental theosophy. The 
sole object of the club was the intellectual pleasure of its members; 
but once a year the feast of reason and the flow of soul were supple- 
mented by terrapin and champagne. 

Into this heterogeneous society Jason Hildreth was received as a 
kindred spirit ; and he soon showed his mettle by a paper on The Deca- 
dence of Literature,” which was greeted with a storm of protestation 
and abuse. 

He was also introduced to another phase of social semi-Bohemian 
life in the Thursday At Homes of Mrs. Ellery, the author of bright 
stories and sketches for Eastern and local journals. Here the social 
standard was neither monetary nor ancestral, but purely intellectual 
and artistic. The doctor had been admitted to her salon, as her friends 
were pleased to call it, by virtue of articles in well-known medical and 
scientific journals. Having herself a slight strain of French blood, 
and speaking the language fluently, she welcomed his friend with 
delight. Here he found authors, journalists, artists, musicians, re- 
formers, and all the varieties of the New Woman, from lawyers and 
suffragists to directors of orphan asylums and chairmen of committees 
on sanitary reform. Mrs. Ellery herself was a charming woman, pos- 
sessed of a diversity of talents, and an ideal hostess. 

Jason Hildreth, awakened from a marvellous slumber in which no 
dreams of former pleasure were remembered, plunged into social life 
with the zest and enjoyment of a debutant Yet it was evident from 
his every action that he was, to some extent at least, accustomed to the 
manner of life he was pursuing. Nor did he neglect his business 
interests. He soon made himself indispensable to the paper with 
which he was connected, and became known to the public as a strong 
and versatile writer. 

His studies, too, absorbed a good deal of his attention, and time 
passed rapidly. He had accepted his strange situation philosophically, 
determined to extract all the enjoyment he could out of life, and to 
leave any possible discovery of his identity to chance and the future. 


588 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


In the rare hours when he chanced to be alone and unoccupied, he 
had diverted himself by little trips about the beautiful bay. He had 
climbed the hills of Saucelito and roamed through the lovely valleys 
that lie at the foot of Mount Tamalpais ; he had visited the fort at 
Alcatraz and the barracks on Angel Island, and interviewed the ship- 
builders in the quaint little village of Tiburon. He had fished for 
smelts from the wharves and gone in a canoe to shoot ducks among 
the tules. 

The whole country about the bay was soon familiar to him ; but 
nowhere did he find a locality that suggested to him the faintest asso- 
ciation of ideas. He was sure that his home, wherever it had been, 
was far away from his present surroundings. 

Often he had studied his face, but it suggested no memories to him. 
The finely chiselled features, the broad forehead, the deep eyes of clear 
blue, the fair brown hair and moustache, with their tendency to curl, 
looked back at him from the mirror with mocking familiarity. His 
well-knit, supple form and slender hands were a part of his personality ; 
but the secret of his identity remained undisclosed. 

But he threw off the burden of the mystery and eagerly grasped 
at the joys of the present. Everything was strange and delightful to 
him ; he felt like a child that has come into possession of a multitude 
of toys. In his eagerness for the experiences of life, he crowded his 
days and nights wdth a variety of occupations, and suffered no time to 
slip through his hands without a tangible labor or enjoyment. 

The winter passed, with its alternate rain and sunshine, the spring, 
with its profusion of flowers in the canons of the foot-hills. There 
was scarcely a perceptible difference in temperature, and when the 
rains ceased the only changes in the weather came in the wind and the 
fog. Sometimes the hills and the bay, and the very streets and houses 
of the city, were covered with a heavy veil of mist ; again, from every 
slope of the hilly streets the water swept its azure crescent about the 
land, its distant silver broken by picturesque islands, crowned with 
light-house or fort. The winter and the spring went by, and summer 
approached with no accession of heat and no difference from the winter 
save in the entire cessation of rain and a slight increase in the pro- 
portion of windy and foggy days. The new-comer marvelled more 
and more at the place where no fires were needed in winter, where 
overcoats and furs were worn in midsummer, and where thin clothing 
was practically unknown. The theatres remained open, and social life 
continued, though somewhat less zealously pursued in the absence of 
many of its high-priestesses in the mountains and bathing- resorts for 
their annual warming. 

So nearly eight months went by, and the curtain was not lifted 
from Jason Hildreth’s past. Then a strange thing happened. 

He had left the doctor at the door of the club early in the evening, 
and had gone to the new lodgings he had recently taken. He had an 
engagement that evening at the theatre with Mrs. Reginald Edwards 
and her party, in which Miss Vaughn and the doctor were included. 
He ran up the steps to his room, lit the gas, and opened his valise to 
take out some article of apparel, In doing so, his hand inadvertently 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


589 


struck something hard, like pasteboard, within the canvas lining of the 
valise. He felt it curiously, and found at length the edge of a pocket 
that he had not noticed before. Inserting his fingers in this and reach- 
ing down, he carefully drew out a heavy card. Turning it to the light, 
he uttered a great cry. It was the photograph of a beautiful girl, with 
broad low forehead and dark eyes. The sweet mouth smiled at him, 
and in a sudden rush of memory he pressed the face to his lips. 

Elizabeth he cried. 

He sank into a chair under the light, and, holding the picture 
before him, gazed long and tenderly upon it. He knew it so well, the 
face of his beloved. 

Ma petite ch^rie he exclaimed, rapturously, again and again, as 
he gazed at the dear features. 

Then a flood of memories filled heart and brain. The moments 
passed into hours, and he sat in the same place, immovable. His 
engagement was forgotten ; the fortunes of Jason Hildreth fell from 
him like a dream. He was Charles de Blainville, looking on the 
pictured face of Elizabeth Howard. 

As he sat in silent absorption, unconscious of his surroundings 
or of the lapse of time, the theatre-party in their box at the Baldwin 
wondered why the interesting young journalist had not made his ap- 
pearance. Miss Vaughn was noticeably disappointed, while Dr. Rich- 
mond grew a trifle uneasy, and even thought of going to his rooms to 
look him up. It had struck him more than once that there was some- 
thing peculiar about Jason Hildreth. He could not define the feeling, 
and he had never expressed it ; but he was always conscious of the 
fact that, save for a few bare details, the entire history of his most 
intimate friend w^as a sealed book to him. 

She sings charmingly, does she not Mrs. Edwards was saying 
at his ear. 

Beg pardon,’^ he returned, rousing himself from his thoughts. 

Yes, it is very piquant,’^ he added, as he caught the last trill from 
the stage. 

He was glad when the performance was over and he had seen the 
ladies to their carriages and said good-night. 

I want to look up Hildreth,^’ he explained to his aunt ; I am a 
little worried about him, — professionally.^^ 

Dear boy,^^ she said to herself, with a smile, as she sank back in 
the carriage cushions ; it is an ideal Damon and Pythias friendship.^^ 

Meantime, the doctor had turned quickly, and, hailing a car, went 
to his friend’s lodgings. 

He ran up the steps to his rooms and pushed himself unceremo- 
niously through the door, that stood slightly ajar. Jason Hildreth 
sat under the gaslight, his eyes staring at a picture on his knee. His 
face, his attitude, expressed utter despair. 

Jason,” the doctor exclaimed, what is the matter with you, old 
man ?” 

He had entered the room, and placed his hand on his friend’s 
shoulder. 

Jason roused himself and looked up in the doctor’s face. 


590 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


‘‘ You are the very man I vvaiit/^ he said. How did you happen 
to come?’’ 

‘^Fidus AcliateSy^ laughed the doctor. ‘^But what is the matter? 
Are you sick ?” he added, more seriously. 

I wonder if I dare to trust you,” the other muttered. 

Jason Hildreth,” said his friend, somewhat sharply, why should 
you distrust me ?” 

On account of your profession,” was the reply. ‘‘ I will tell you 
my story and ask your help, if you will swear that you will not think 
me crazy, that you will not hand me over ” 

I don’t belong to the lunacy commission,” interrupted the doctor ; 
‘‘ and, besides, I am your friend : so go ahead.” 

He had thrown himself into an arm-chair opposite his friend, and, 
crossing his knees, settled himself comfortably for the story. 

You have never seen any evidence of insanity ” 

Never,” interrupted the doctor. You have acted exactly like 
other men, except that you would never speak of your past, and I 
supposed you had a reason for that.” 

What did you think, for instance, was the reason ?” asked his 
friend. 

Well, the most plausible supposition was that it was a painful 
subject.” 

^^That is not it,” said Jason. ^^Can you think of no other 
reason ?” 

Of course,” returned the doctor, lightly, you might be a nihilist 
‘ abroad for your health ;’ but I have not discovered that a knowledge 
of Russian is among your numerous accomplishments ; or you might 
be an anarchist preparing to blow the city into the bay ” 

Seriously,” interrupted Jason, impatiently, has no other reason 
ever suggested itself to your mind ?” 

Not in connection with you,” was the reply, in a tone that had 
become earnest. If I did not know your character so intimately, I 
might have suspected the concealment of crime as a possible motive; 
but no one could live on such terms with you as I have done and 
tolerate such an idea a moment.” 

But why should you have thought my past so painful ?” 

Well, if you press me,” rejoined the doctor, perhaps some love- 
affair, the fickleness of some woman ” 

This is my fianc^ey^ interrupted Jason, handing him the photo- 
graph, — the best and most beautiful woman in the world.” 

The doctor took the picture curiously, and a look of deep admira- 
tion crossed his face. 

She is very beautiful,” he said. 

^^She loves me,” continued his friend, ‘^and she has been waiting 
long months in vain for tidings of me.” 

You cad, you !” spluttered the doctor, choking with wrath, 
why have you not written to her ? Why did you not let us send 
word to her when you were sick ?” 

‘‘ Because I could not,” said Jason, sadly ; and I cannot now.” 

He buried his face in his hands and groaned. 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


591 

What is it asked the doctor, his voice changing to bewildered 
sympathy. 

You do not understand yet why I never told you anything of 
my past 

The doctor shook his head impatiently. 

“ It was because,’^ said Jason, slowly, looking in his eyes, because I 
had forgotten it.^^ 

The doctor sprang to his feet with a cry. 

I have heard of such cases,’^ he said, but I never came across 
one before.^’ 

^^Now,’^ said Jason, angrily, ‘^you must drop your professional 
interest for a personal one, or I will not tell you another word. I 
object to being considered a ^ case,^ when my life’s happiness depends 
upon your help.” 

Forgive me, Jason,” said the doctor ; but possibly the con- 
sideration of your ^ case’ might help to a solution of the problem that 
seems to exist. But go on : I promise to think of you first as a 
friend.” 

^‘And you will not consider me an impostor because I named 
myself and constructed a slight biographical outline ” 

And your name is not Jason Hildreth ?” demanded the doctor, 
with increasing astonishment. 

No,” was the reply ; my name is Charles de Blainville, and I 
was born in Paris.” 

Then Jason told him the story. Occasionally the doctor interrupted 
him with a question ; but for the most part he sat in rapt attention, 
listening to the strange tale of his friend. Midnight had passed, and 
since then the clock had struck twice, but they had not noticed it ; for 
when the tale was ended, they talked over many plans for discovering 
the missing links in the chain of the story and so uniting the strangely 
sundered destinies of Charles de Blainville and Elizabeth Howard. 


III. 

As the man called Jason Hildreth had sat alone, looking at the 
picture on his knee, the life of Charles de Blainville unrolled like a 
panorama before him. He saw dimly, through the distance of years, 
a pretty villa in the suburbs of Paris : on the terrace stood a lovely 
lady, holding a little boy by the hand. The child was himself. A 
moment more, and a great dog bounded over the fence into the garden, 
and a gentleman passed through the gate and approached them. The 
child ran toward him, crying, Mon p^re, mon p^re.’’ 

The next thing he remembered was a long and stormy sea-voyage, 
during which his lovely mamma was lying always in her berth and his 
father stayed with her, while Annette, the nurse, took him on deck 
and sometimes scolded and slapped him. Then came a day when his 
mother held him closely in her arms, while his father wept beside them. 
Suddenly the arms about him relaxed and the face he kissed was cold. 


592 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


The next day they wrapped her in a wliite shroud and read out of a 
book, while he stood near, grasping his father’s hand tightly, for he 
was afraid. Then they lowered her into the waves, and he would 
have jumped over to follow her, had they not caught him and held 
him back. 

He remembered no more till he was travelling in the cars with his 
father over a strange country and trying to understand the unfamiliar 
speech of the people. Then, with an exultant thrill that was new and 
distinct from anything he had felt in his other recollections, came the 
memory of his home, — the home he had known and loved for many 
years. It was a spacious old stone house, in the midst of great maples, 
and set on a hill in the suburbs of the city. A low wall of carefully 
kept hedge surrounded the garden, and the stone walks were bordered 
with violets and mignonette. There were no other flowers about the 
house ; but across the street was a large private garden belonging to 
his father, in which were collected plants rare in that climate, such as 
magnolias, and cacti, and oleanders, planted in large tubs. Adjacent to 
the house and its grounds was the residence of a prominent judge in 
the city. 

With the memory of these things, distinctly the family annals and 
traditions returned to his mind. His father had come of an aristo- 
cratic but ruined family, and was striving to rebuild its fortunes in the 
New World, with the hope of returning at some time to his beloved 
Paris, when he should be able to buy back the ancestral property and 
restore the family to its former grandeur. It was the one dream of his 
life, and his son was doubly loved, tenderly for his own sake, and 
proudly and jealously as the representative of a great line destined to 
see the restoration of the family fortunes and to pass on the name to 
future generations. 

The name of Armand de Blainville was soon known in the city to 
which he had come as that of a wealthy man ; but judged by his own 
standard he was yet poor. He owned a large iron-foundry, with a 
branch in a neighboring city ; and a cluster of little cottages not far 
away on the hill belonged to him. 

It was in this place that the little French boy had grown to man- 
hood. He had been both a thoughtful and a happy child, and was 
never lonely, for he spent long hours in the companionship of his 
father, and, when his childish impulses moved him, he found play- 
mates in the children of the gardener and the coachman, who lived in 
the tiny red brick cottages below. He had a little Shetland pony that 
he rode over the hills, and a faithful dog that accompanied him on his 
expeditions for nuts and autumn leaves. As he grew older, he chose 
for companions those of his school-mates whose tastes were congenial 
with his own ; but his father was always his dearest and most appre- 
ciated friend. From his earliest childhood he had studied the French 
classics with his father, and his mind had fed on the tales of the 
prowess of his ancestors and the glory of his house. 

Annette and Lucie, his mother’s maid, had stayed with them until 
Lucie married and Annette died. By this time he had entered college, 
where he remained for two years. His vacations were spent at home 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


593 


with his father, for whom he had always felt the deepest affection. He 
remembered upon these occasions how strangely the English speech 
of the new servants struck him in his home, where during all his boy- 
hood^s years he had heard nothing but the French tongue. 

It was during his first vacation that he met Elizabeth Howard. 
She was visiting in the house that adjoined his father’s. The first time 
he saw her, she was standing in the garden, a slim, graceful figure 
robed in white, with a dark face of the most exquisite beauty. He 
stood unseen behind the shrubbery of roses that separated the two 
gardens, and watched her until she turned at last and went back to the 
house. Then he sought his father. He found him in the library, 
engrossed in his favorite volume of Racine. He approached him and 
took his hand in his affectionate, boyish way. 

Father,” he said, who is the beautiful lady I saw in the garden ?” 

It is Miss Howard,” was the reply, — Mrs. Stewart’s niece.” 

Will you take me to call on her this evening ?” the son asked. 

Yes,” he answered, simply. 

Then he arose, and, placing his hands on his son’s shoulders, looked 
at him with searching eyes, shadowed a little by sadness. 

My son,’' he said, ^‘you will not leave your father?” 

Mon p^reT was all the son could say at once. Then he flung 
his arms around his father’s neck. 

‘‘ Never will I leave you,” he cried. But some time if I should 
bring you a daughter ” 

‘‘And she is of good family and at least moderate fortune, I shall 
be glad to welcome her. I would rather you should choose a woman 
of your own people ; but I might have foreseen it would be otherwise 
when I brought you here.” 

That evening seemed to young de Blainville the opening of the 
gates of Paradise. The judge and Mrs. Stewart engaged his father in 
conversation, while Miss Howard discussed with him music and litera- 
ture and art. They talked, too, with the enthusiasm of youth, of re- 
ligion, social reform, and the future of the race. They even spoke of 
love, as something in the abstract, beautiful, and as yet unattained by 
them. Indeed, there was scarcely a subject upon which they did not 
touch, from the Hindoo drama and recent advances in the study of 
bacteriology to the latest improved methods of heating and lighting 
houses. Miss Howard even tried to converse with him in French, 
with a charming accent and naive blunders that delighted him. 

Before they went away, his father asked Miss Howard to play for 
them. Without apology or demur, she sat down at the piano and 
gave them Wagner's “ Ride of the Valkyrie.” The unearthly sweetness 
of the music thrilled him as music had never done before. When its 
last wild notes had died away, the music glided in a dulcet improvisa- 
tion into the serene rapture of Beethoven’s “ Moonlight Sonata.” The 
little circle of auditors sat spellbound till the last notes dropped softly 
into silence. Then Mr. de Blainville asked her to sing. 

She rose from the piano, and, taking a guitar from the case, sat 
down in a low rocker by the window. After a faint, rippling prelude, 
she began “ Die Lorelei.” As she sang, her face impassioned with the 

Yol. LIX.— 38 


594 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 


weird power of the music, her slender fingers caressing the strings 
with deft touches, it seemed to the young man who sat watching her 
that she was ‘Mie schonste Jungfrau,^^ who was singing away his soul. 
But he knew that the comparison was unworthy.; for her face was as 
pure and noble as it was beautiful, and in her clinging white dress 
she might better have suggested St. Cecilia. 

As she rose at their departure, a rose-bud dropped from her hair. 
He stooped quickly and picked it up. 

May I keep it as a souvenir of this evening’s pleasure ?” he asked, 
and she smiled her consent. 

After this, there was scarcely a day that he did not see her. There 
was only a wall of rose-bushes between the two gardens, and Charles 
soon forgot that it was intended as a dividing line. They read together 
and talked together, rode horseback and played tennis and took long 
rides on de Blainville’s new tandem bicycle. It was one evening when 
they were in a row-boat on the river, drifting down with the current, 
that the young man softly repeated the words, — 

“ Seele des Menschen, 

Wie gleichst du dem Wasser; 

Schicksal des Menschen, 

Wie gleichst du dem Wind.” 

Do you know the words?” he added, softly. 

‘‘Yes,” she replied: “they are from Goethe. Won’t you write 
them down for me ?” 

“ If you will write the translation under them,” he said. 

He drew a paper and fountain-pen from his pocket and wrote the 
words in German script ; and under them she wrote the translation : 

Soul of man, 

How like the water ! 

Fate of man, 

How like the wind !” 

“ It is a little free,” she said, as she handed it to him, “ but it is 
more poetical than a literal rendering.” 

Then he claimed the paper as his property, and, despite her laughing 
protest, put it in his pocket. 

His vacation drew near its close, and with it Miss Howard’s visit, 
which had been prolonged far beyond her original intention. One 
evening, as father and son sat in the library before the lamps were 
lit, the young man spoke of something that had been in his mind 
for several weeks past. 

“ Father,” he said, “ I should like to give a farewell lawn-party 
for Elizabeth.” 

The elder man’s eyes sought his son’s face in the dusk. 

“So you call her Elizabeth,” he said, musingly. Then, rousing 
himself, he addressed his son. 

“ Excuse me, mon cher,^ he said ; “ of course your wish shall be 
carried out.” 

Armand de Blainville never did things by halves ; and the house 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


595 


and gardens were a dream of beauty the night they were decorated in 
honor of Elizabeth Howard. Palm-leaves and lace-like ferns from 
the conservatory adorned the walls ; the house was fragrant with tropical 
lilies and Cape jasmine; rare potted plants and jardinieres peeped 
from corners and nooks among pictures and statuary and fine bric-^- 
brac. In the garden, platforms had been erected for dancing, and the 
grounds were brilliantly illuminated with Chinese lanterns and electric 
lights. 

Elizabeth had come over early with her aunt to see the decorations, 
and Charles had conducted her through the grounds and the house, 
leaving his father and Mrs. Stewart to follow at their leisure. 

Elizabeth had never looked so beautiful to him before. She had 
abandoned her favorite white and pale shades for an elegant dress of 
yellow velvet and black lace, that brought out the beauty of her clear 
dark skin and the splendor of her eyes. Charles knew, from the ad- 
miring glance his father had given her, that he thought her worthy of 
the long line of de Blainvilles. As yet, he himself had spoken no de- 
cisive word ; he had waited for this night, half with design, and half 
from hesitation to break the delicious spell of unacknowledged love. 

She paused at the threshold of a large room on the second floor, 
whose walls were covered with portraits, and looked at him inquiringly. 
They are my ancestors, he said, with a smile. My father 
thinks more of them than the Roman ever did of his lares and penates.^^ 

She stepped into the room with mingled curiosity and awe. 

‘‘Do you know what they are to me?’^ she said, with a half-smile. 
“They are simply the hereditary forces that have contributed to your 
personality. For this reason they are interesting.^^ 

“ How deep is the interest he said, with flushing face. But she 
was absorbed in contemplating the portraits, and did not hear him. 
There were soldiers and statesmen who had fought bravely and thought 
wisely for their country ; there were famous court beauties and ladies 
of salons. 

“ What are you thinking he said, at last. 

“ I was thinking,’^ she said, seriously, “ that you have a distin- 
guished ancestry, and that you are worthy of it ; but it would be in- 
conceivably interesting to trace the line back to the primeval race and 
see,^^ she added, mischievously, “ how the trilobite has developed into 
the king-crab.^^ 

“ You do me too much honor,” he said, with a mocking bow ; “ but 
if I am to be an exponent of the law of evolution, I should prefer, at 
least, not to be considered crabbed.” 

She made a grimace over the pun and turned to leave the room ; 
but he caught her hand. 

“ Elizabeth,” he said, desperately, “ you have said I was worthy 
of my ancestry ; am I — am I worthy of you ?” 

Her raillery was gone in a moment : she looked at him with serious 
eyes. 

“ What do you mean?” she said, simply. 

“ I mean that I love you,” he cried, drawing her to him passion- 
ately. 


596 


JASON HILDRETH^ S IDENTITY. 


Two hours later, in the midst of the music and the glare of lights, 
he led her from the waltz into a cool, retired arbor, where the moon- 
light fell softly through the rose-leaves on their faces, and, without 
other words, quoted to her a passage from Browning : 

You might have turned and tried a man, 

Set him a space to weary and wear, 

And prove which suited more your plan. 

His best of hope or his worst despair. 

Yet end as he began. 

But you spared me this, like the heart you are. 

And filled my empty heart at a word.’^ 

The next year of his college life passed quickly and happily. 
Elizabeth's father, a wealthy merchant of a neighboring city, had 
given his consent to his daughter’s marriage, which was to be deferred 
till Charles had finished his university course. By that time, his 
father thought, he would have accumulated sufficient for them to 
return to France and buy back the family estates. Twice during the 
year, at Christmas and in the spring, Charles had gone to the city 
where Elizabeth lived and seen her in her home. He was warmly 
received by her father, a stern, dignified man, who took no trouble to 
conceal the fact that he felt honored by the proposed alliance. 

Thus time passed until, near the close of his second year, Charles 
was called home by the sudden and serious illness of his father. 

He found him lying in his room, emaciated, ghastly, with the 
shadow of death already upon him. He held out his hand without a 
smile. 

Have they told you, my boy he said. 

Charles knelt by the bed and took the wasted hand between his 
own. 

“ They told me only that you were sick,^^ he said. I had hoped 
you would be better when I came.’’ 

“ I will never be better,” was the response ; but that does not 
matter so much. There is a heavier calamity than this in store for 
you. My son, my son,” he sobbed, “ we are ruined.” 

Under the shock of the realization of his father’s approaching 
death, any other misfortune seemed of little consequence to the young 
man. 

Mon p^re, mon he cried, with the old intonation of his 

boyhood, it would not matter if I might only have you.” 

Ah, Charles,” sighed the father, placing his trembling hand on 
the bowed head of his son, you do not understand. The de Blain- 
villes, the family estates ” 

His voice sank to a moan. The son did not oflTer him comfort in 
words. He knew the dream of his life was broken ; and the dreams 
of the old cannot be restored. 

It was those last unfortunate investments,” continued the elder 
man. I thought they would bring me threefold returns ; instead of 
that, everything is gone, — everything. I thought our exile was nearly 
over ; instead of that, I am dying in a foreign land.” 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITF. 


597 


Moments passed in silence. The odor of mignonette came through 
the open window ; somewhere among the maples a bird called to his 
mate. 

Charles/^ the father murmured at last, I can do nothing but 
pass on my work to you. Will you promise me, before I die, that you 
will try 

‘‘Yes, father,’^ returned the son, pressing the feeble hand that 
sought his ; “ I will work for the fulfilment of your hopes, — and for 
Elizabeth.” 

“ Ah, yes, Elizabeth,” sighed the old man. “ My poor boy, your 
misfortune has fallen upon you with double bitterness.” 

A few days later he died. Nervous prostration and heart-failure, 
the doctors said ; but the son knew he had died of a broken heart. 

The day of his father’s death he received a letter from Simeon 
Howard. It stated briefly that, owing to the changed circumstances 
of the young man, he was to consider an alliance with Mr. Howard’s 
daughter as out of the question. The following day came a letter 
from Elizabeth. It was full of indignant protest against her father’s 
action, and the assurance of her unaltered affection. 

“ I will marry you,” she said, “ though my father should cast me 
off and we must live in poverty. For what is poverty of the purse to 
emptiness of the heart ?” 

“ You must be patient, dear,” he had written in reply, “ till I can 
win a home for you. I am doubly pledged to success, — for the fulfil- 
ment of my father’s wishes, and for you.” 

And so, when he had settled his father’s affairs, paying his liabilities 
to the last cent, and had arranged for the storage of the few personal 
effects he had not parted with, he took the thousand dollars that re- 
mained of his father’s fortune and set out for California. There, he 
thought, would be less competition and a better chance of survival in 
the struggle. 

Elizabeth had come to the train to see him, as he passed through 
the city where she lived ; and, notwithstanding the curious spectators, 
he had held her a moment in his arms and listened to her broken 
words of love. 

“ Ma 'petite cMrie he called back to her with a choking voice, as 
the train pulled out of the station and he saw her wave her hand in 
mute farewell. Then the white-robed figure dimmed and disappeared, 
and a mist fell before his eyes. 


IV. 

Such was the life that Jason Hildreth recalled as he sat alone in 
his room under the gaslight ; and thus, with many details, he repeated 
it to Dr. Richmond. It was perfect, save for one thing : in all his 
recollections, with the exception of the villa in the suburbs of Paris, 
there was no locality. What city it was in which he had grown to 
manhood, what the name of the college he had attended, and where 


598 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


Elizabeth lived, he did not know. He had a vague idea that his 
home had been in one of the North Central States ; and he remem- 
bered that Elizabeth lived half a day’s journey west. 

On first thought, it seemed to the two friends that it would be easy 
enough to fill out the blanks in the story. Such a man as Armand 
de Blainville must have been known in the State in which he lived. 
It would seem easy enough to locate his iron-foundries, and thus to get 
the key to the whole situation. Then, too, it would seem easy enough 
to find the name of Charles de Blainville in the printed college lists 
of students. So Jason Hildreth, as he was still known to the world, 
and still called, out of caution, by the doctor, sent for directories and 
college reports from all parts of the country, and in the evenings the 
two friends immured themselves in Jason’s study and sought for the 
names of the two de Blainvilles. But in vain. From the larger cities 
they had gone to the towns and the villages, and from the larger uni- 
versities to the small colleges. At last, after several weeks of arduous 
work, they sat one night staring across the table into each other’s eyes. 

‘^Are you sure,” asked the doctor at length, ^‘are you sure the 
name is de Blainville? It might be de Mandeville, or de Joinville, or 
any other kind of a ville.” 

I am sure,” said Jason, solemnly ; as sure as I am of my exist- 
ence. For heaven’s sake,” he added, petulantly, don’t look at me 
with your professional expression.” 

^^I beg your pardon,” said the doctor, with a laugh. He was 
already half convinced that Jason’s story was a hallucination. And 
yet the consistency of it, and the existence of the photograph and the 
bit of German verse, as well as his friend’s undoubted sanity in all 
matters of daily life, caused him to hold his judgment in suspension. 

There is some mistake in the printed lists,” said Jason. I am 
going to write to the postmasters of the most probable cities, and send 
messages to Elizabeth through newspaper personals, and — engage a 
detective.” 

All at once?” queried the doctor, with a smile. 

Well, I will leave the detective for the last resort,” returned his 
friend ; but I have a conviction that it will come to that.” 

And his fear was correct ; but the detective’s investigations failed 
as completely as had all other means of inquiry. 

The greatest blow to Jason’s hopes was a polite letter he received 
from a Paris official in answer to a letter of inquiry. 

I regret to inform Monsieur,” it said, “ that no record can be 
found of the branch of the de Blainville family that Monsieur repre- 
sents. I regret also that it has been found impossible to locate the 
villa of which Monsieur speaks.” 

To think,” said Jason, when he bad read the letter to his friend, 
^Ghat the family of de Blainville should have dropped out of the 
memory of people like that. Such a letter as this would have killed 
my father. It is useless,” he added, to make any more inquiries. I 
see that I must wait till I am rich enough to travel and locate things 
myself.” 

Miss Vaughn began to complain that Jason was neglecting her. 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY, 599 

and that he was adding insult to injury by monopolizing the society 
of the doctor. 

It was very nice to have two nephews/^ she said to him, re- 
proachfully; ‘^but I decidedly object to having none at all.’’ 

They were sitting before the open grate in the back parlor, where a 
merry fire blazed ; for Miss Vaughn had never become sufficiently 
acclimated to dispense with fire in the rainy weather. 

You must forgive me, dear Miss Vaughn,” was the rejoinder; I 
have been much troubled of late, or I should not have been so un- 
grateful to you after all your kindness to me.” 

Is it bad news from home ?” she said, gently, looking up with her 
quick sympathy. 

For one moment, Jason was tempted to tell her his troubles; but 
he restrained himself. He knew his story would grieve her ; at the 
same time, he felt that his secret was safer with the doctor as his sole 
confidant. So he answered her evasively. 

It is worse than that,” he said : it is no news at all.” 

But, my dear boy, no news is good news,” she hastened to re- 
join ; and, besides, you told me that you had no home ties.” 

‘‘No immediate family,” Jason admitted; “ but friends in whom I 
am interested.” 

Miss Vaughn frowned slightly and looked in the glowing coals. 
She was not without the match-making propensity of her sex, and had 
in her mind at that moment a charming girl of her acquaintance, who 
was a millionaire in her own right. 

“ You need society to divert you,” she said. “ You must go to 
Mrs. Edwards’s musicale to-morrow. I want you to meet her niece. 
Miss Gordon, of Los Angeles. You would certainly please each other.” 

He saw the drift of her thought, and recoiled from it. In his 
highly wrought state, the mere suggestion seemed like sacrilege to the 
memory of Elizabeth. 

“ You are very kind,” he said, rising; “ but I hardly think I shall 
be able to go. I have important business to attend to.” 

And he left her a little piqued at the frustration of her plans. 

The days and weeks passed monotonously for him, yet filled with 
a feverish expectation and impatience. The mystery surrounding his 
life absorbed his thoughts and cast a shadow on the pleasures of the 
brief months of utter forgetfulness. His books and his scientific in- 
vestigations no longer interested hinx; his work had become a burden. 
He would go out to the Park or the Cliff House alone and wander 
about for hours, with head bent and hands clasped behind him ; or he 
would sit on a bench in one of the city squares, absorbed in thought, 
until the doctor, or some other acquaintance, chanced to pass and to 
banter him on his preoccupation. 

Gradually hope died out of his heart, and a settled apathy seemed 
to possess him. The doctor urged him to throw it off, insisted upon 
taking him to places of amusement, and forced him to give some at- 
tention to his favorite studies. But there were always protests and 
cynical reflections on the vanities of life, where formerly there had 
been nothing but good-natured compliance and the zest of enjoyment. 


600 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY, 


To think/’ he said bitterly to the doctor one day, that I should 
remember the entire middle voice of my Greek verbs and forget the 
name of the place where Elizabeth lives.” 

And with this commentary on the value of learning he pushed 
his books impatiently away and looked despairingly at his friend. 

Come with me to-night to see ‘ The Three Guardsmen/ ” was the 
only response ; and, in lieu of anything else to occupy his thoughts, 
Jason consented. 

A year had now passed since Jason’s memory of his life returned 
to him ; and in all that time no incident had occurred to confirm his 
recollections or put him on the track of discovery. But as he was 
sitting in the theatre with Dr. Richmond, something happened to 
rouse his crushed hopes and instigate him to fresh investigations. 

In spite of himself, his attention had become fixed upon the stage, 
and it was only between the acts that he suffered it to wander about 
the house. He bowed to Mrs. Edwards and Miss Gordon, to whom 
Miss Vaughn had at last succeeded in introducing him ; but he glanced 
away and did not see the motion inviting him to their box. 

As his eyes passed carelessly over the throng, he chanced to glance 
in a large mirror on one of the side walls of the room. Two ladies 
had risen and were leaving the house. 

Come,” he cried, grasping his friend’s arm so excitedly that the 
latter winced : Elizabeth is walking down the aisle.” 

Are you crazy ?” muttered the doctor ; for the curtain was rising, 
and he was greatly interested in the play. 

Look in the mirror,” returned his friend, as he pushed by him 
impatiently : the tall dark girl in black.” 

The doctor looked in the direction indicated, and started as he saw 
the reflection of what was surely the original of the photograph of 
Elizabeth. He snatched up his overcoat and hastily followed his 
friend. He found Jason standing in front of the door, staring down 
the street disconsolately. 

‘‘ I have missed her,” he said, in despair. A carriage drove away 
just as I got to the door. It must have been theirs.” 

He would not rest until he had procured a messenger-boy and sent 
to the papers personals addressed to E. H. and signed C. de B. The 
next morning he examined the leading hotel registers for the name of 
Elizabeth Howard, but without success. 

Two days later, as the two friends were walking up a residence 
street, a little before midnight, on their way home from the club, they 
passed a house, faintly lighted up, from which issued the sound of a 
piano. Jason stopped in front of the door as the familiar chords fell 
upon his ear; and just then a sweet voice began, ‘‘Ich weiss nicht, 
was soli es bedeuten.” He would have sworn it was Elizabeth singing 
Die Lorelei.” 

He sprang up the steps and had his hand on the bell, when he was 
pulled back by his cooler-headed friend. 

What are you doing ?” the doctor demanded, sharply. 

^^It is Elizabeth,” gasped Jason. 

Well, suppose it is,” said his friend; ‘^you cannot ring at this 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


601 


hour of the night. Look at the number of the house, and come 
to-morrow morning to see about it.^^ 

Jason stood a moment irresolute, then turned and walked away 
with his friend. As they passed out of the glare of the electric light 
into the shadows of the street, he heard the sweet voice singing, — 

‘‘ Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen 
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn.^^ 

Oh, God f ^ he groaned ; if the waves should destroy my little 
bark before 

Then the bit of German verse she had translated broke in upon his 
thought, and he murmured, — 

“ Soul of man, 

How like the water ! 

Fate of man, 

How like the wind V* 

His broken dreams that night were full of visions. Elizabeth, 
like the Lorelei, sat on the rocks above the swift current of the Rhine ; 
but the locks she combed were raven instead of gold. And as she sat 
singing, he tried in vain to steer to her his little boat against the 
current; and all the while the black waves were saying to him, in 
mournful human voices, — 

‘‘ Soul of man. 

How like the water !” 

And the wind moaned about him, with a despairing cry, — 

“ Fate of man. 

How like the wind !” 

Then, as he forced his way across the waves at last, and his frail 
bark shivered on the rocks, the beautiful woman bent over him with 
mocking laughter and cried, I am not Elizabeth Howard ; I am only 
the Lorelei,’’ and her black tresses turned to locks of gold, and her 
dark eyes to cold blue, like the sea. 

He rose at daybreak. The time of waiting till a suitable hour to 
call seemed interminable to him. Then he was afraid that he would 
lose her at the last, — that she would elude him like the Lorelei of his 
dream. He lingered over his toilet, looking anxiously at the face 
reflected in the glass. 

I wonder if she will find me changed,” he thought. I certainly 
look older than I should be. Probably the sickness and the anxiety 
over the mystery have been the cause of that.” 

He never doubted that she had been true to him and would be 
rejoiced to see him. How she came to be in San Francisco he could 
not imagine. He did not remember ever to have seen before the lady 
that was with her at the theatre. Was it possible, could it be, that 
she had found his silence insupportable, and had come to San Francisco 
to find him ? His heart beat fast at the thought. 


602 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


He went to the restaurant where he usually breakfasted, and played 
absently with his fork and spoon till his coffee and steak grew cold. 
He did not look at the morning paper, except to glance at the per- 
sonal notes and advertisements. His personal to E. H. had not been 
answered. 

At last, after numerous consultations of his watch, he decided that 
he might venture to go to the house. 

He found it a private boarding-house on the corner of two hilly 
streets. His ring was answered by a colored boy. 

Is Miss Elizabeth Howard in he asked. 

No, sah/^ was the instant reply ; I don’t know the lady, sah.” 

^‘Are you sure she does not board here?” exclaimed Jason, in 
surprise. 

Sure, sah,” the boy said. 

would like to see the lady of the house,” said the bewildered 
young man. 

The boy conducted him into a sitting-room opening out of the 
vestibule. He sat down by the window and looked about him, men- 
tally condemning the conventionalities that delayed even for a few 
moments his meeting with Elizabeth. On the opposite side of the 
room stood a grand piano, littered with music, as though it had been 
recently used. While he was wondering if he could find ‘‘ Die Lorelei” 
among the scattered sheets, the landlady entered, a pretty little woman, 
who looked at him inquiringly. 

I understood from your boy,” said Jason, that Miss Elizabeth 
Howard does not board here.” 

No,” was the reply, I have no boarder of that name.” 

But she was here last night,” insisted Jason, and perhaps you 
will be able to give me her address.” 

^‘If she was here last night,” the landlady replied, ^^she must 
have been calling on Mrs. Hanford. I heard Mrs. Hanford singing 
quite late. But I have never heard her speak of the lady you 
mention.” 

Can I see Mrs. Hanford ?” inquired Jason, eagerly, and, as he 
spoke, the name stirred him faintly with a thrill of memory. 

I am sorry,” said the landlady, but she and her aunt went to 
Pacific Grove on the early train this morning. They are making a 
tour of the State.” 

And you can tell me nothing of Miss Howard ?” asked Jason, 
struggling to suppress his disappointment. 

Nothing,” was the reply. 

Do you know Mrs. Hanford’s address at Pacific Grove ?” he asked. 

I think she intends to stay at the El Carmelo Hotel for a while,” 
answered the landlady, and at the Del Monte later.” 

In less than an hour after Jason left the house, he stood in the 
Fourth and Townsend Street d^pot, satchel in hand, waiting for the 
train. He had obtained leave of absence from the office on the plea 
of urgent business ; but he had found no time to send word to the 
doctor of his plans. 

As he sat in the train, impatient of the time that must intervene 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY, 


603 


before he might hope to hear of Elizabeth, he did not regret his 
impulsive action. True, he reflected, he might have written to Mrs. 
Hanford and asked her for Elizabeth's address ; and if she were still 
in the city he would probably be able to see her as soon as he could 
hope to by following the plan he had adopted. But he had no certainty 
that Mrs. Hanford, in the change and excitement of travel, would 
reply to the letter of a stranger ; and, besides, in his present state of 
nervous tension, it seemed impossible to him to sit down and wait 
calmly for the occurrence of events. He craved action and longed to 
assist the progress of his destiny. 

Through the beautiful country that lies south of San Francisco, 
with its orchards and vineyards and its prosperous little towns, through 
the fertile sweep of the Santa Clara valley, where the air grew warm 
and balmy with the breath of summer, that is chilled before it reaches 
the city on its mist-hung hills, through its metropolis, beautiful San 
Jos6, the Garden City of the West, on into the wilder ways and the 
spicier air of the northern coast of the county of Monterey, he passed 
with unseeing eyes. The passengers on the train were chiefly pleasure- 
seekers who were going in parties to their favorite coast resorts ; and 
the silent man, with his impatient, preoccupied air, sat among them 
alone with his strange thoughts. Even the beauties of Del Monte, 
the high tower and gabled roofs of the hotel rising above the foliage 
of the magnificent grounds, in which the wonders of nature and of art 
had been marvellously combined, aroused him only to the thought that 
he was near his journey’s end. 

It was evening when he reached Pacific Grove ; a cold, foggy 
evening, with the wind blowing from the bay. He scanned eagerly 
the faces of the people that crowded the little station, summer visitors, 
most of them, who had come from the hot valleys to enjoy the cool air 
and the sea-baths of the resort. The face that he looked for with wild, 
unreasoning hope was not there. 

He took the El Carmelo cab and was soon jolting over the road 
between rows of white tents and pretty cottages to the hotel. As he 
jumped from the carriage he glanced rapidly over the long veranda, 
where people were sitting alone and in groups, absorbed in idle medi- 
tation, or chatting together with the easy familiarity of a sea-side hotel. 
But the face he sought was not there. 

He went into the office and engaged a room. As he bent over the 
register to write his name, he started back with a smothered cry of 
surprise. The last name on the page was Mrs. Laurence Hanford, in 
the handwriting of Elizabeth Howard. He drew the scrap of German 
verse surreptitiously from his pocket and compared the writing of the 
translation with that in the register. They were indisputably the same. 
Again the name struck some hidden chord of memory ; and this time 
an explanation of its familiarity forced itself with sickening certainty 
upon his mind. Laurence Hanford must be someone whom Elizabeth 
had known and whose name she had mentioned to him in the days of 
their courtship. Then, after his own disappearance, as time went on 
and she heard nothing of him, she had thought him false or perhaps 
dead, and had suffered herself to be consoled by her old friend. 


604 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


He stopped with the pen poised in the air. Perhaps there was 
some mistake. Perhaps Elizabeth was in the hotel and had registered 
for her friend. Women do not like to write with their gloves on, he 
reflected, grasping at the pitiable straw. 

^‘Is Miss Elizabeth Howard in the hotel he asked the clerk. 

No ; I do not know the lady,’^ was the reply. 

And Mrs. Hanford,” continued Jason, with some hesitation, did 
she write her name herself?” 

Yes,” said the clerk, a little impatiently. She registered for 
herself and the other lady. They came this morning.” 

Jason glanced at the name above, Mrs. Gerald Matheson, and saw 
that it was in the same familiar writing. 

What does Mrs. Hanford look like?” Jason went on, regardless 
of the clerk^s look of surprise. 

She is dark and very handsome,” was the curt reply, as his inter- 
locutor wrote the name of Jason Hildreth under that of Mrs. Han- 
ford. 

Jason went to his room, uncertain what to do. He must know — 
he must find out — if Mrs. Hanford was Elizabeth Howard. 

^^If she has forgotten me so soon,” he muttered, ‘Gf she has mar- 
ried so soon after her vow of love till death, — and after death, — then 
henceforth I shall be Jason Hildreth to the world. My father is dead ; 
let the line of de Blainville die with him. Elizabeth is dead to me. 
There is no link to hold me to the past. I will live a new life under a 
new name.” 

Then all his soul rose in protest against the thought. 

She is not untrue,” he said ; ‘‘ she cannot be untrue. There is 
some terrible mistake. Oh, Elizabeth, my love, my love !” 

He buried his face in his hands and groaned. 

Meantime, Mrs. Laurence Hanford sat by the window in her room, 
looking absently out upon the plat of flowers in front of the hotel. 
Her face was pensive to sadness, but with its broad low brow and bril- 
liant black eyes was extremely beautiful. A recent novel she had been 
making pretence of reading had fallen face down on the floor ; her 
hands, on which flashed several rare jewels, were clasped loosely in her 
lap. She had sat thus for many moments without speaking. 

Her aunt, who was arranging some flowers in a vase on the table, 
broke the silence a little impatiently. 

I don^t know what is the matter with you lately, my dear,” she 
said, ^^you are so distraite 

The younger woman turned her head with a slight start, and, bending 
over, picked up the neglected book and laid it on the table. 

I cannot help thinking, Aunt Flora,” she replied, of the per- 
sonal in the San Francisco papers. The initials were E. H. and C. de B. 
They might stand for Elizabeth Howard and Charles de Blainville. It 
is very strange.” 

You have the most fantastic imagination in the world,” said her 
aunt, with evident annoyance. It may be a coincidence ; it cannot 
possibly be anything more.” 

Mrs. Matheson was stout and blonde ; and her fair face flushed as 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY, 005 

she spoke. Mrs. Hanford noticed it, and wondered at herself for 
taking cognizance of such trifles. 

“ But he called her ^ ma petite eherie^ she persisted. I wish I 
had answered it.^^ 

“ Well/^ ejaculated Mrs. Matheson, I do not understand you. A 

widow still in black and answering newspaper advertisements 

Aunt/^ cried her niece, rising, with flashing eyes, ‘^you know it 
is because I think this may be in some way connected 

But her passion subsided in a burst of tears. The elder woman 
dropped her flowers, and, going to her niece, put her arms about the 
sobbing form and drew it to her breast. 

Forgive me, my dear,” she said. I should remember how you 
have suffered.” 


V. 

Half a dozen different plans of action had suggested themselves to 
Jason Hildreth during the long hours he lay awake that night. He 
thought he would send Mrs. Hanford his card and ask for an interview ; 
then he had decided to send simply the name, Charles de Blainville : 
at last, however, he decided to leave the meeting to chance, and mean- 
while to see Mrs. Hanford before she knew of his presence. Were 
she indeed Elizabeth, if he should present himself unexpectedly to her 
she w'ould certainly betray to him her indifference or her love. 

Accordingly, he breakfasted early, before the ladies were down- 
stairs, and enscx)nced himself with a book and a cigar in a shady nook 
of the veranda. He drew his hat down over his face, and depended 
upon his beard, which he was sure he had not worn before his sickness, 
as sufficient disguise until he chose to reveal himself. 

His neighbor at the table d'hote soon joined him, and accepted the 
cigar Jason offered him. He was a slight, blond man, young and 
somewhat flippant. Jason instinctively disliked him, but it was not 
worth while to be rude to him ; besides, he might give him some in- 
formation ; for Jason had already discovered that he was familiar with 
the gossip of the place. He therefore greeted him pleasantly, and was 
immediately rewarded for his trouble. 

^^Have you seen the rich widow?” the new-comer asked, carelessly, 
as he sank lazily into a huge rocker and crossed his feet on the balus- 
trade of the veranda. 

Whom do you mean ?” asked Jason, quickly. 

Mrs. Hanford,” his companion rejoined. She came down yester- 
day, and is already making quite a furor. She’s confoundedly hand- 
some, and they say the ducats count up handsomely too. I’ve a notion 
to go in for her myself.” 

The speaker smiled complacently : Jason could have struck him for 
his insolence. 

“ By George, there she comes now,” the young man added, looking 
toward the door. 

Jason looked up ; as he did so, his heart gave a leap, and then stood 


606 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


still. In an instant he had recognized the younger of the two ladies 
who came out on the veranda. She was tall and dark, with broad low 
brow and brilliant eyes. She was dressed in black, and the beautiful 
face wore an expression of sadness lie had never seen on it before. 

Elizabeth, Elizabeth his heart cried out ; but he controlled 
himself. As the two ladies crossed the veranda and sauntered slowly 
down the street, he turned to his companion. 

Did her money come from her husband he asked. 

Yes,^’ was the response. ‘‘ They say he lived only a short time 
after he married her. She has been a widow a year or so.^^ 

‘‘ She must have married shortly after I came away,^^ thought Jason, 
bitterly, and for money. And yet she could speak to me of prefer- 
ring poverty of the purse to emptiness of the heart.^^ 

His companion talked on, detailing the hotel gossip, as from time to 
time different guests appeared and either settled themselves on the long 
veranda or followed Mrs. Hanford and her companion down the street 
toward the beach; but Jason did not hear him. Becoming aware of 
his inattention by his companion's impatient repetition of a question, 
he excused himself and started down toward the bay. 

Queer fish,^^ said the young man to himself, as he watched Jason^s 
figure disappear down the street. ‘^Struck by the widow, too, evi- 
dently; but it must have been a lightning-stroke.^^ 

He shrugged his shoulders, and sauntered over to a group of girls 
who were posing in various attitudes in the veranda rocking-chairs. 

Meantime Jason had reached the bluff above the bathing beach and 
looked down on the scene below. 

It was full of animation and the unconscious abandon of idleness 
and pleasure. The water rolled in softly lapping waves on the little 
curving stretch of sand shut in by jutting rocks; beyond, to the left, 
the cliff of Lovers’ Point projected into the bay ; away to the right, 
beyond Mussel Point, glimmered in the uncertain sunlight the white 
coast of Monterey. From the lookout and the bath-house broke the 
sound of merry voices ; the beach itself was filled with people, sitting 
or lying on the sand and watching the bathers. In an instant Jason 
had recognized Elizabeth and her aunt, at the farther end of the 
beach, the latter seated with her back against a rock, and Elizabeth 
lying on the sand with her head in the older woman’s lap. He felt 
a strange tightening of the heart ; and he passed on, for he wanted to 
be alone. 

He passed several beaches and a succession of high cliffs, wandering 
on till he came to the natural arch of stone a mile or two out of the 
town. It was high tide ; the waters billowed and roared through the 
great gate-way of the rocks ; while beyond, on the foam-capped waves, 
floated two tiny boats, with white sails gleaming in the sun. 

Jason sat down on a projecting rock, with his face turned seaward. 
His mood was in sympathy with the weird loneliness of his surround- 
ings : the surge of the tide, broken by the massive passage througli 
which it rolled ; the low wail of the wind ; the hoarse shriek of the 
sea-gull that skimmed over the surface of the water, its shadow fluctu- 
ating in the waves below. It seemed to him that the whole world was 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


607 


sad and full of mist, and that all lives, which had once appeared to 
him so many opportunities of unutterable joy, had become hopeless 
tragedies. 

He did not know how long he had been sitting thus, sunk in bitter 
thought, when he heard voices behind him, on the path above. He 
listened with strained attention and fast-beating heart. Elizabeth was 
speaking. 

I love the sea,’^ she said ; and yet it seems to me the materiali- 
zation of all the sadness of the world. The lap of the tide and the 
sweep of the wind are like the voice of the Zeitgeist^ the time-spirit, in 
sorrow. Then, too, it suggests the uncertainty of the eternities, before 
and after our little span of life.’^ 

She paused a moment, then, in low, tense tones, repeated the familiar 
words, — 

Seele des Menschen, 

Wie gleichst du dem Wasser; 

Schicksal des Menschen, 

Wie gleichst du dem Wind.” 

Jason bent his head lower over his breast, and a dry sob shook his 
form. Oh, the irony of her remembering those words, when she had 
ceased to love him ! 

‘‘ You are too sad for so young a woman, my dear,^^ a calm voice 
broke the silence. 

^^But doift you know,^^ the familiar voice continued, again these 
seas seem to me like the visible barrier of death, beyond which he is 
waiting for me. Oh, my love, my love, all others were shadows to me 
when you came ; you were the only reality, the only one I ever truly 
loved 

Her voice thrilled with passion and despair, and every word fell on 
the heart of Jason like the blow of a lash. 

But, my child,’’ persisted her aunt, ‘‘ you are young and rich and 
beautiful. It cannot be that love will remain forever shut out of your 
life. Sorrow softens with time, and I am sure there is happiness yet 
in store for you.” 

Aunt Flora,” her companion broke in vehemently, never sug- 
gest that to me again. The thought of a second marriage is hateful to 
me : my love will always be with the dead.” 

‘‘ Hush, hush, my dear,” the elder lady interposed ; there is a 
man down there on the rocks.” 

And the man sat with head bent on his breast till he heard their 
voices and their footsteps die away in the distance. Then he rose 
wearily and started back toward the town. 

It is all over,” he said to himself ; it is all over.” 

He drew a folded paper from his pocket, and, tearing it in two, 
gave the pieces to the wind. An hour later, he sat in the San Fran- 
cisco train and watched the curving shore-line disappear in a curtain 
of mist. 

At the same time, Mrs. Laurence Hanford and her aunt, returning 
from the light-house, stopped again at the arch. They descended from 
the bank above, and, while Mrs. Matheson sat on the rocks, the younger 


608 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


lady climbed to the top of the arch, and sat there, breathing in the 
full breath of the wind. Her mood had ehanged ; she had given way 
to the wild exhilaration that some natures experienee from the influence 
of the sea. A great wave broke on the rocks, and a faint spray blew 
in her face. 

I feel like a stormy petrel,’^ she eried : I should like to ride the 
foam and fly in the wake of the wind.’^ 

Her aunt smiled at her enthusiasm, pleased with the rich color that 
had mounted in her cheeks. 

At last she descended from her somewhat dangerous perch, jumping 
lightly over the rocks till she stood by her aunt’s side. 

‘‘ This is where our solitary man was sitting,” she said, absorbed 
in dreams. I wonder what he was thinking of.” 

Her aunt rose, and they started toward the bank above. 

What is this?” said the young lady, lightly, as she stooped and 
picked up two pieces of paper that had lodged between the rocks. She 
fitted the pieees together and looked at the words. Suddenly the roar 
of the sea seemed to deepen and thunder in her ears ; the arch, the 
water, and the curving shore eircled about her till they became like 
wheels of fire. 

My God !” she gasped, as she sank down on the rocks with the 
pieees of paper clutched convulsively in her hands. 

“ What is it?” cried her aunt, running to her and putting her arm 
around her trembling form. 

This,” was the reply, as Mrs. Hanford held the scraps of paper 
toward her aunt. His writing and mine. We wrote it one night on 
the river, in the boat, — ^ Seele des Menschen’ ” 

Her voice became choked ; she stopped and stared wildly at her 
aunt. 

What can it mean ?” she went on. I cannot think. It cannot 

be — that man ; at least he must have known Oh, auntie, auntie, 

tell me what to do.” 

That night, as Dr. Richmond sat in his study, reading the Revue 
des Deux Mondes^ he was startled by the opening of the door behind 
him. He looked back, and jumped to his feet with a cry. Jason 
Hildreth stood before him, with drawn, white face, and eyes that were 
set and expressionless as the eyes of the dead. The doctor had to 
shake himself to get rid of the illusion that it was only the apparition 
of his friend that stood before him. 

What have you been doing to yourself, man ?” he cried, as he 
seized him by the arms and drew him toward an easy-chair. 

Jason sat down mechanically and looked at his friend with his 
terrible, lifeless eyes. 

^^It is all over,” he said. ^^She married another man. He is 
dead, but his memory is to her the only reality.” 

The doctor stared at him uncomprehendingly. 

Don’t you understand ?” said Jason, in a tone as cold and ex- 
pressionless as his eyes. am Charles de Blainville no more. I 
am Jason Hildreth, without a future and without a past.” 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 


609 


VI. 

One evening, as the doctor sat in his study reading an evening 
paper, his eye was suddenly arrested by two familiar names. He 
started with surprise and read the paragraph through ; then, folding 
the paper and putting it in his pocket, he rose, put on his overcoat 
and hat, and started rapidly down the street. Ten minutes later he 
burst in upon Jason Hildreth, who was sitting at his desk with a pile 
of manuscript before him. 

^^What are you doing he asked, for a moment diverted from 
the object of his visit. Copy ?” 

No,^^ said Jason, looking up with a smile. It is something — 
diflFerent.^^ 

The face, though smiling, was sad, and greatly changed in the last 
few days. It smote the doctor^s heart with a pang of pity. 

^‘May I see it?’^ he asked, nodding toward the pile of closely 
written sheets. 

Yes,’^ said Jason, as he handed them to his friend : I shall 
want your criticism.'^ 

“ ‘ A Lorelei of the Hills,^ read Dr. Richmond, glancing at the 
first page. “ What is it f’ 

Jason smiled again, a little bitterly. 

^^It is the story of a maiden he said, “who sang away a man^s 
heart and soul ; and when he became poor and went away to seek his 
fortune for her, she vowed to him eternal fidelity. Then, in his sick- 
ness and in the silence that came with it, she forgot him, and married 
for money ; and soon the love of her husband stirred in her heart a 
reflex emotion that she called love. But the knight of the shekels 
died, and then her heart turned with a vain yearning to her first love. 
But he, not knowing of her inconstancy, had retained in his heart the 
image of his ideal. He saw her again, without her knowledge, and 
learned of her marriage. Then the image of his ideal, the idol he 
had worshipped, is broken ; and henceforth the face of his beloved is 
to him the face of the Lorelei who has wrecked his life. He goes 
away, unknown to her, and, taking a new name, begins a new life. 
Under his new name he wins fame and fortune, but never happiness. 
He is a painter, and his first great picture is the Lorelei, with the face 
of his false love. She knows and loves his work, and pierces through 
his disguise. But her late yearning cannot bridge the gulf of disen- 
chantment, and her pride preserves the secret of his identity. After 
many years of silence between them, they die the distance of a conti- 
nent apart, and are buried on the shores of different seas.’^ 

He paused and looked questioningly in his companion’s face. 

“Jason Hildreth,” said the doctor, sententiously, “you are a fool.” 

“ Why,” said Jason, in bewildered surprise, “ what is the matter ? 
Is not the plot good ?” 

“ The plot does very well — for a novel ; and I do not doubt this 
is well written,” he said, impatiently, as he laid the manuscript on the 
table. “ But in real life I hope the hero will think more kindly of 
the woman he loves, and not throw away his chances of happiness/’ 

Yol, LIX.— 89 


610 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 


What do you mean demanded Jason. What chances of 
happiness has the hero in real life ?” 

For answer, Dr. Richmond drew the paper from his pocket and 
pointed to the paragraph that had so excited him. 

Jason looked at it and read, — 

If C. de B. wishes to communicate with E. Howard, he can do 
so by addressing his communication to Pacific Grove.’^ 

Jason laid the paper down without a word. The doctor waited 
a moment for him to speak, then broke the silence impetuously. 

You will answer it, of course he said. 

No,’^ said Jason, slowly ; I shall not answer it.’’ 

You do not mean that you will throw away your happiness now 
that you have so miraculously found it, do you ?” said the doctor, in 
amazement. 

“ I have found no happiness, nor chance of happiness,” was the 
reply. It is of no use to try to restore the illusions of the past ; my 
love is only a broken dream.” 

^^But you are not fair to Elizabeth,” persisted her champion. 

She doubtless believed you dead and yielded to the pressure of her 
father’s influence when she married.” 

Jason did not reply. 

Doubtless she loves you still, or would love you as of old, if you 
would give her the opportunity to do so.” 

But Jason shook his head ; he remembered the impassioned words 
he had heard her utter at the arch. 

Why, man,” continued his friend, you surely would not expect 
a woman to remain all her life true to the dead ?” 

Yes,” said Jason, slowly, if the woman was Elizabeth.” 

The doctor looked at him in impatient despair. 

‘^I have an engagement and must go,” he said, rising; ^^but 
promise me that you will answer the advertisement. You can at 
least locate your old home and get on the track of all your previous 
history.” 

Again Jason shook his head. 

It does not matter now,” he said. The old life is dead beyond 
recall. Let its memories die with it.” 

But you will promise to answer the personal — to please me ?” 

Jason looked at him. 

^^Yes,” he said, ‘Gf you wish it so much, I will promise to 
answer.” 

When the doctor had gone, Jason drew a sheet of paper toward 
him and began writing his reply. Again and again he tried to frame 
his thoughts in words ; and again and again he tore the paper to scraps 
and committed them to the waste-basket. Now he wrote her a letter 
of forgiveness and an ardent declaration of his love, and again a tor- 
rent of reproaches and a prayer for explanation of the strange events 
that had occurred since he had parted from her. Sometimes he was 
cold, sometimes chiding, and again sneering and sarcastic. Some- 
times he besought her wildly to be his; sometimes he claimed her, and 
again spurned her with scorn. At last, however, pride and the de- 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY, 011 

spairiDg thought that she was in truth no longer his dictated the final 
reply : 

Let the Lorelei sit on the rocks alone and sing her enchanting 
songs in vain. Charles de Blainville can no longer be of interest to 
Elizabeth Howard. He is only a shadow before the reality of him 
she has lost. Besides, he is poor ; and one cannot expect a woman to 
prefer poverty of the purse to emptiness of the heart. Henceforth he 
has ceased to exist. Under a new name, he lives a new life in which 
the history of the past has no part. Let him be forgotten, for his 
fate is like the wind.*^ 

He copied the letter on a typewriter that stood on a little table 
beside his desk, and enclosed it in an envelope, also addressed on the 
machine. 

When he had finished his task, he pushed back his chair with a 
sudden thought. He was invited to a reception that evening, and he 
would go. It was true he had sent regrets, but he could offer the ex- 
planation of a sudden change in his plans, and he was sure of a warm 
welcome from the hostess. 

Half an hour later he started out. It was a cold, foggy night. 
Turning up the collar of his great-coat, he walked briskly against the 
wind. He stopped at the nearest mail-box and deposited the fateful 
letter. Then he hurried on, not giving himself time for thought of 
the consequences. 

So you came, after all,^^ was the doctor^s greeting a few moments 
later, when he found himself face to face with Jason Hildreth in the 
bay-window of Mrs. Givens’s front drawing-room. 

Yes,” said his friend, I changed my mind. You see,” he added, 
in a confidential aside, ‘^I’m after material. I’m going to satirize 
modern society.” 

Indeed !” laughed the doctor. I wish you success.” 

Oh ! you are here, you naughty boy,” said a soft voice in his ear ; 
and, turning, he saw Miss Vaughn, lovely in gray silk and soft old 
lace. She slipped her hand in his arm and led him away. 

I want you to see Miss Gordon,” she went on : she is charming 
to-night.” 

‘‘I suppose that means,” commented Jason, ^Ghat she has a new 
Parisian costume.” 

How ridiculous you can be !” was the laughing rejoinder. 

The next moment the doctor, glancing across the room, and missing 
half of the sentence his vis-di-vis was addressing to him, suppressed a 
chuckle as he saw his friend engaged in animated conversation with 
Miss Gordon. 

He has gone to the right place for his material,” was his mental 
comment. 

Afterward Miss Gordon reported the conversation to her aunt as 
the most delightfully atrocious she had ever had with him. 

He said that social functions were a farce,” she declared, gleefully, 
'Gnd that the very use of the word function in such a connection was 
evidence of the deterioration of the race. He said that Signor Cris- 
toni, who played so beautifully, was advertising himself, and that Mrs. 


612 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


Givens, in securing him, was actuated by the noble motive of surpass- 
ing Mrs. March, who had Mr. Vore, the wild-eyed sculptor, at her 
last At Home. He informed me, too, that the men and women there 
were on dress parade both literally and figuratively, — and he looked 
pointedly at my new gown as he said it, — ^and that you might meet a 
person every week in society for a lifetime and know no more of his 
real nature than of that of a resident of the antipodes.^^ 

Was that all?’’ said her aunt, anxiously, for she was always on 
the watch for impecunious suitors, and sometimes remarked plaintively 
that she did not think it right that fortuneless young men should be 
received in good society. 

If you mean to ask if he paid me any especial attention,^^ laughed 
her niece, he didn’t ; but he devoted a good deal of attention to my 
sex. He said that usually a woman didn’t have a heart ; but if she 
did, she wore it in some conspicuous place, and if she gave it away 
she could easily replace it. He said it wasn’t the fad for women to 
have hearts now, anyway; they belonged to a past epoch, the days of 
chivalry and the times of Fielding. He even made a sarcastic allusion 
to the spinning-wheel and the bicycle, — the old wheel in the garret 
and the new wheel on the street. I remember that I muttered some- 
thing incoherent about wheels in our heads. But I’d like to know 
what he knows about women’s hearts ; I don’t believe he has any 
heart himself ; he’s as cold as an iceberg.” And there was a suspicion 
of annoyance in the voice at the last words. 

Jason himself, in the loneliness of his room, thought of the even- 
ing’s pleasure with a sense of disgust. He had gone out to get away 
from himself, from his bitter thoughts and intolerable sense of loss. 
He had gone with a reckless desire of abandoning himself to whatever 
pleasure might fall in his way; and the gayety and frivolity he had 
seen had struck back like blows on his heart. The world was nothing 
but vanity of vanities, without Elizabeth ; all other women were un- 
real and insignificant in comparison with her. No one else had ever 
possessed her sweetness of disposition, her force of character, her 
beauty. No other woman had ever measured the heights and depths 
of love as she had done. No one else could ever thrill every fibre of 
his being with so intense a realization of life in its completeness. And 
yet she was false to him. The foundations of the universe seemed 
fallen away from beneath his feet. 

The next evening Mrs. Laurence Hanford stood in the long line at 
the post-office that stretched from the delivery window far out into the 
street. The evening mail was just in, and post-office and street were 
full of the idle chatter of the waiting crowd. 

Mrs. Hanford bowed and smiled and chatted with the rest; but 
the action was automatic and mechanical. All the while she was 
repeating to herself Will he write? will he write?” with painful 
reiteration. Then, as the line advanced, and she drew nearer to the 
window, the words changed to ^^Has he written? has he written?” 
They grew so loud that they blotted out the sounds about her ; and as 
she stood before the window at last, a loud roaring sounded in her ears. 
She took the letter that was handed out to her, and looked at the ad- 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 0]3 

dress. It was E. Howard, Pacific Grove.^^ But the typewritten 
letters struck a cold chill to her heart. 

She had not realized before how much she had hung upon this 
hope. A thousand times she had said to herself, It cannot be he.^^ 
But the words had not been sufficient to uproot the strange idea that 
had sprung up in her mind. Her aunt could not call the episode of 
the German verse coincidence, but she did call it accident. 

It is some one that has known him,^^ she said ; and in some 
way the paper came into his hands.’’ 

^‘But the personal, aunt?” Mrs. Hanford protested. 

^^Well, if the same man wrote the personal,” was the reply, 
which I do not admit, either he has some message for you, or he is 
playing a game too deep for us.” 

Now, as she walked back to the hotel, with the mysterious missive 
in her hand, she reflected sadly on the plausibility of her aunt’s theory. 

Surely, if it was he,” she said to herself, he would have written 
in his own hand.” 

Her aunt was waiting for her on the veranda. 

Any mail ?” she asked. 

Only one letter — for myself,” said Mrs. Hanford. 

She passed on into the hotel and went to her own room. She 
wanted to be alone when she read it. 

An hour later, her aunt found her lying on the bed, tearless, but 
with a face of despair. She did not look up as her aunt entered the 
room. 

It was he,” she said, listlessly. He no longer loves me, he no 
longer wants me ; he wishes to live a new life under a new name.” 

What do you mean, child ?” exclaimed her aunt. 

Bead the letter on the table,” was the only reply. 

When Mrs. Matheson had done so, she turned to her niece with 
indignant surprise. 

‘^And you think he wrote that?” she said. ‘^It is clear to me 
that it is some adventurer who is working a scheme we do not under- 
stand. He probably wants your money.” 

But the allusions, aunt,” protested Mrs. Hanford. No one else 
could have known them.” 

^^Not unless he had been told,” said Mrs. Matheson. “It is 
patent that your correspondent is a traitorous confidant of the man he 
is seeking to personate.” 

Mrs. Hanford shook her head. 

“ It is true,” she said, with sad conviction ; “ I am sure it is 
true.” 

“Will you answer it?” asked her aunt. 

“How can I,” was the response, “when there is no address? But 
I shall put a personal in the paper that there are financial reasons why 
he should reveal himself. He should have his money.” 

She stopped speaking and turned her face to the wall. Her aunt 
sat helplessly by the window, staring out upon the flower-plat and the 
people returning in groups from the post-office. Laughter and merry 
voices came up to them from the street below. 


614 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY, 


VII. 

Jason Hildreth did not answer the personal that appeared in the 
papers referring to his financial interests. 

What is the use?’’ he said to the doctor, who importuned him to 
reply to it. ^^It is only a ruse, for I know I have nothing.” 

‘‘But your father may have had property in France of which 
you know nothing; or some relative may have died and left you 
money.” 

“ Granting the possibility of such a thing,” said Jason, “ it does 
not matter to me. I have enough to live on, and I no longer care to 
return to my old home.” And he remained inexorable to all the 
doctor’s logic and pleading. 

Mrs. Hanford, waiting in vain for an answer to her advertise- 
ment, came gradually to adopt her aunt’s theory that the man was 
an adventurer and had found it impossible to put his scheme, what- 
ever it might be, in operation. Haunted by the fear that he might 
be shadowing her for some as yet undeveloped purpose, she left 
the Grove, and, after making a hurried trip to Southern California, 
returned East. 

Jason, however, ignorant of her movements, was never free from the 
thought that some time he might meet her face to face on the street. He 
began to look for her among the crowd ; more than once he had pur- 
sued a figure in the distance, only to find himself deceived. What he 
would do if he should chance to encounter her, he had not decided ; 
but he could never resist the unreasoning impulse to follow up any 
fallacious resemblance that presented itself. At the theatre, he forgot 
the stage and the people about him, to stare hopelessly in the mirror 
where he had first seen her face. He never entered a drawing-room 
without glancing hastily about to see if some trick of fate had not 
brought her again within his reach. 

But time passed on, and nothing more was heard of Elizabeth. 
Jason had become grave and a little sad ; and his friends complained 
that his literary work took him away too much from their society. 
The only social functions he regarded were Mrs. Ellery’s At Homes, 
where he acquired a new reputation for quiet sarcasm, and the meet- 
ings of the Criterion Club, where he presented papers so pessimistic 
that even the socialist was startled. The only lady upon whom he 
called was Miss Vaughn. Even to the doctor he never spoke of the 
past. 

His novel was successful, and his name began to appear in the 
leading magazines, chiefly over descriptive and out-door articles, the 
material for which was drawn from the mountains and valleys and 
coast of California. Thus three years went by before he came to 
another turning-point in his life. 

It was on a bleak and foggy day that the doctor, alighting from 
his buggy to enter the house of a patient, and holding his head down 
against the sweep of the wind, stumbled against his old friend. Jason 
looked up with mild reproach as the doctor began an incoherent 
apology. 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 615 

Come up to my rooms when you get through your rounds/^ he 
said : ‘‘ I am going to sail for Brazil to-morrow.’’ 

The doctor whistled his astonishment. 

What’s up ?” he said. 

series of descriptive articles for the Magazine,” was 

the response. 

The doctor grasped his friend’s hand and began voluble congratu- 
lations. Jason smiled a little sadly. 

Yes,” he said, slowly ; once I would have cared for the honor ; 
now it does not matter.” 

It is the one chance you needed to wake you from your indiffer- 
ence to life,” said the doctor, sharply, ^^and I advise you to improve 
it. I wish,” he added, with a malicious after-thought, I could force 
you to go through the hospital with me and see the poor fellows there 
that would jump at your chance of longevity.” 

He sprang up the steps and rang the bell ; and as Jason walked 
slowly down the street, he heard his cheerful voice at the door. 

That afternoon Jason received a summons from Miss Vaughn to 
come to her. 

Of course I meant to run in to say good-by,” he protested, as 
she began a torrent of gentle reproaches. ‘‘ The matter is a surprise 
to myself, and I shall have no time to make my adieux to a sorrowing 
public.” 

He laughed lightly as he settled himself comfortably in an easy- 
chair opposite his hostess. 

How much you are having an opportunity of seeing in your life !” 
Miss Vaughn said, musingly. You have lived in New York, you 
have crossed the continent, and now you are going to South America. 
I suppose Europe will be your next objective point, or the heart of 
Africa, or the Antarctics. I hope you will come back to tell us about it. 
Remember that you are an American.” 

Jason flushed uneasily and sought to change the subject. Chancing 
to look up at the wall back of Miss Vaughn, he noticed the portrait 
of a young girl, that had often attracted his attention. She was very 
beautiful, with fair, oval face, bright dark eyes, and brown hair touched 
with a tinge of gold. The low neck and round short sleeves of the 
dress showed the plump neck and arms; in her hands, that lay loosely 
clasped in her lap, she held a pink rose. Now, as he looked from the 
pictured face on the wall to the living face before him, for the first 
time he traced the same soft curves of cheek and chin and throat, — 
though in the older face the fulness of outline and the freshness of 
color were gone. But as he looked from one face to the other, he 
scarcely knew which seemed to him the more beautiful ; and he thought 
how lovely must have been the spring-time that would make possible 
such an autumn. 

It is yours,” he said, smiling at her, and looking back to the por- 
trait, that smiled at him in return. 

“ Yes,” she said ; and an expression of tenderness he did not un- 
derstand flashed across her face. ‘‘ It was painted for my father many 
years ago.” 


616 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 


“ Who was the artist he asked. It is very finely done.’^ 

She hesitated a moment before replying. 

He was one of the geniuses who have missed fame/^ she said, at 
last, with a ring of sadness in her voice. He was a young man 
who gave up art to make a fortune. I do not know what became of 
him.^^ 

A word of indignant condemnation rose to Jason’s lips, but was 
quickly suppressed. 

Perhaps,” he thought, he was bound by an oath to his father,” 
The conversation turned to other matters ; but years after, Jason 
remembered every word that had been spoken about picture and painter. 

When he had gone at last, and left her standing in the room alone, 
she turned back to the portrait with a sigh ; and for a moment a mist 
of tears dimmed her eyes. 

Had fate been kind enough to give me a son,” she said softly to 
herself, would have wished him to be like Jason Hildreth.” 

That evening the doctor carried his friend off to a banquet given 
him by the Criterion Club, and it was late when Jason returned to his 
rooms. Lighting the gas, he chanced to catch a glimpse of his face in 
the mirror. He stopped and studied it a little curiously. He remem- 
bered the first time he saw it during his illness. It had struck him 
then like a face in the crowd, that one recognizes and vainly strives to 
connect with distinct associations. He had felt strangely lost and be- 
wildered then ; but now that he had a name and a history to associate 
with the face, he found the memories bitter and would gladly have 
plunged again in the Lethe of the past. He was conscious of the 
curious hardness that comes from the dispelling of illusions ; he felt 
suddenly old. All hopes, ambitions, aspirations, seemed idle as the 
breatli of a wind ; and, like the wind, they seemed suddenly dried up 
in blowing across the desert of his life. 

But the next day he stood in the bow of the steamer as it passed 
through the Golden Gate, and as he looked out upon the open sea the 
dual life he had led seemed to fall away from him, leaving him alone on 
the threshold of an unknown destiny. Only two faces haunted him, the 
same and yet different, for one was faithful and the other was false. 


VIII. 

The details of Jason’s adventures in South America do not concern 
this narrative. Suffice it to say that in writing up the country he in- 
vestigated the mines, became interested, and invested in them, and that 
his ventures were so successful that he found himself in time rich 
beyond even the dreams of Armand de Blainville. He prolonged his 
stay in the country to more than three years, during which time he 
wrote a South American romance that gave him rank among the fore- 
most writers of the time. 

When he returned to San Francisco at last, seven years had elapsed 
since he awoke in it to his strange oblivion of the past. He had 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


617 


indeed lived a new life under a new name ; and, like the painter- 
hero of his first novel, he had won fame and wealth, but never hap- 
piness. 

The memory of Elizabeth had not died in his heart ; he loved her 
as he had thought her in her girlhood, as good and true as she was 
beautiful. STo other face had ever supplanted the perfect face of his 
ideal; again he saw in his sleeping and waking dreams the broad 
low brow, the straight nose, the rounded cheeks, the sweet thin lips, 
the firm little chin, the clear dark skin, and the glowing depths of 
the limpid black eyes. But the vision that haunted him was never 
acknowledged by word or sign, other than the grave lines that deep- 
ened about his mouth and the gray that was almost indistinguish- 
able in the light brown of his hair. The eyes, too, were serious, 
and lacked the sparkle of merriment that he remembered in those 
of Charles de Blainville. 

He arrived in San Francisco after a stormy voyage, during which 
he thought more than once that the strange fortunes of Jason Hildreth 
would soon be ended ; and it seemed to him that, after all, it made 
little difference. But as the vessel glided safely through the Golden 
Gate, and the blue bay, dotted with its islands, lay before him, a 
pressure to which he had unconsciously become accustomed seemed 
lifted from his heart. He could scarcely realize, in the exultation of 
feeling that accompanied his home-coming, that he was not a native 
American. The beautiful Parisian villa seemed so far back in his 
infancy that it was little more than a dream ; and his old home, still 
unlocated, rose before him with all the minuteness of detail of long 
familiarity and love. He had been reading Bourget’s Nostalgic’^ on 
the vessel ; the descriptions of the coast scenes of Italy and France 
did not paint so fair a picture for his eyes as the lovely American 
shores, with their fringes of pine and palm and the beautiful curves 
of the bays ; and while yet outside the bar, as he had seen the flag 
wave proudly from Fort Point, his heart had swelled and sudden 
tears had dimmed his eyes. 

Charles de Blainville may have been a Frenchman,’^ he said to 
himself; but surely Jason Hildreth is an American.” 

As the ship drew near the wharf, the warmth of feeling centralized 
till it had settled about one familiar face and form, those of his truest 
friend. Dr. Richmond. During his residence in South America he 
had kept up a desultory correspondence with him, which had become 
even more irregular after the doctor’s marriage to a lady whom Jason 
did hot know : so that more than a year had elapsed since his last 
letter when Jason wrote him a brief note telling him of his proposed 
return and the probable date of his arrival. But no epistolary short- 
comings could change the real feeling that underlay their close com- 
radeship; and it was but one face in the crowd that Jason sought 
as the vessel shuddered and stood still, chained like a trapped wild 
creature to the dock. 

He was not disappointed ; as he stepped from the gang-plank, a 
familiar voice greeted him and a familiar hand-clasp welcomed him 
home. 


618 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


The doctor had grown stouter and more successful and complacent 
than ever, but otherwise he was unchanged. 

Come home with me/^ he said. My wife is expecting you/^ 

Under protests that were borne down by the doctor’s undoubted 
cordiality, Jason allowed himself to be carried oflf. 

^^And how are Miss Vaughn and the fine boy of whom you 
wrote me?” he hastened to inquire, as he sat down in the carriage 
beside his friend. 

^‘The boy,” laughed the doctor, ‘^is quite aggressive, and already 
considers himself the most important member of the family. He is 
fond of company, and will be delighted to see you. As to my aunt, 
you will be disappointed; for she has returned for a time to her early 
love. New York. She is visiting cousins from the first to the forty- 
second degree, and writes very indefinitely of her return. I am sure, 
though, when she learns that you are here, she will want to come 
back.” 

I may hunt her up before that time myself,” was the laughing 
rejoinder ; and it was not until later that the doctor thought there was 
anything serious in the remark. 

By the way,” the doctor continued, ^^she has just written a bit 
of news that may interest you. It concerns your old friend Miss 
Gordon.” 

And what of her?” asked Jason, with a smile of amused 
recollection. 

Mrs. Edwards took her to New York last fall,” was the response. 

She was very gay all winter, and has just realized her aunt’s am- 
bitious hopes by marrying a title and going to England to live. My 
aunt says that everything about the wedding was very brilliant except 
the bridegroom. He is rather dull, and decidedly old ; but, as the 
title is old too, I suppose it is all right. The bride herself is not ex- 
tremely young. But Mrs. Edwards, at least, is happy, as she is now 
certain of being presented at court.” 

By this time they had reached the house, the familiar appearance 
of which warmed the heart of the wanderer like the face of an old 
friend. Mrs. Richmond received him with the cordiality of her 
husband. 

I have heard the doctor speak of you so much,” she said, that 
you seem quite like an old friend.” 

She was a very pretty woman, petite and blonde, and Jason did not 
wonder that his friend had given up his bachelor freedom to become 
a paterfamilias. 

After she had made tea for him, she sent for little Edgar, who in 
a few moments appeared, holding the hand of his nurse. He was a 
beautiful child of two years, with large dark eyes and a halo of bright 
curls. He at once verified his father’s account of him by dropping 
his nurse’s hand, going up to the guest, and gravely signifying his 
desire to be taken, by lifting his little arms to him. Perched on the 
coveted knee, he entertained his new friend with infantile prattle until 
borne away by the nurse under vehement protest. 

Something in the domestic scene stirred Jason’s heart to restless 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 


619 


desires that he had thought suppressed forever. For oue moment he 
saw in imagination the face of Elizabeth in his own home, and dared 
to dream of a child in her arms. Then the madness passed, and 
he turned to his hostess to reply to a question she had just addressed 
him. 

She was a bright talker, and drew out Jason on his varied experi- 
ences: so that several hours passed before they were aware. Jason 
wondered how much she knew of his history. 

After dinner, when Mrs. Richmond had gone to the nursery, the 
doctor took his friend to their old sanctum and brought out his 
choicest cigars. 

Well,’^ he said, as he settled himself back comfortably in his 
chair, now that you are a rich man, what are you going to do about 
the de Blainville estates 

Jason looked up quickly through a cloud of fragrant smoke at his 
friend^s face. 

That has been troubling me of late,^^ he said. If it were not 
for my promise to my dying father, I would gladly bury the name 
forever. There are too many painful memories associated with it. 
But, as it is, I feel that the time has come to fulfil my pledge.’^ 

^^But,’^ said the doctor, startled by the answer his question had 
provoked, what are you going to do 

It seems hard,^^ said Jason, slowly, that I should start off again, 
just after returning and realizing my love for my adopted country ; 
but I see no other way to do than to go to France and make personal 
investigations where written inquiries have failed.’^ 

And will you live there, asked the doctor, and give up 

^^Am I not bound by honor asked Jason, sadly. To-day 
he continued, I am Jason Hildreth and an American ; to-morrow I 
shall be Charles de Blainville, a Frenchman returning to my native 
land.^^ 

To-morrow ejaculated the doctor, bounding from his chair in 
his surprise and grasping his friend by the shoulder. ‘‘ You certainly 
do not contemplate such wild precipitancy as that?’^ 

^^It is not so precipitate as it seems,^^ said Jason, quietly. ‘^It 
has really been planned a long time. I should have sailed for France 
from Rio de Janeiro, but I had not the courage to go without another 
sight of the land which, in spite of the misfortunes that have befallen 
me here, has become very dear to me.’^ 

But you will not go for a few days, — a week, — a month,” pro- 
tested the doctor. 

^^Ah !” said Jason, with a smile, ‘‘that is just it. If I did not 
go at once, my resolution would fail. I would stay a week, — a month, 
— a year, — forever.” 

He smiled a little bitterly. 

“ Mon pauvre he said, as though to himself ; “ he did not 

dream it was a burden he was laying upon me.” 

They sat and smoked and talked out the greater part of the night, 
— a night that was afterward remembered by both as the last in the 
life of Jason Hildreth. 


620 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 


IX. 

Charles de Blainville/^ read Miss Vaughn, in bewilderment, as 
the maid handed her a card. I do not know him.^^ 

But he says, ma’am,’^ persisted the girl, that he is an old friend 
from California.’’ 

There must be some mistake ; but I will see him,” was the 
response ; and the speaker descended to the drawing-room. 

As she entered, a tall figure, with handsome, bronzed face, rose to 
meet her with outstretched hand. 

Jason Hildreth!” she exclaimed, joyfully, as she clasped the 
extended hand. 

You must have sent up the wrong card,” she went on ; for 
there was some French name on it. I am delighted to see you, and I 
am going to show you New York. It is not at all as I expected it to 
be from your descriptions.” 

Probably not,” laughed her visitor, as I have not set foot in it 
before since I was an infant.” 

She looked at him in amazement. 

‘^But I thought you told me ” she began. 

That I used to live here,” he interrupted. So I did. But I 
have a confession to make. The fact is, I am on my way to Paris, 
and I could not leave America, to which I may never return, without 
making a clean breast of it to you. But first tell me about yourself. 
You are looking well.” 

He wanted to tell her that she looked lovely ; and perhaps his 
look of aflFectionate admiration said it without words. 

“ Thank you,” she replied ; I have been quite gay lately, for an 
old auntie. Cousin Florence is something of an invalid, and finds me 
quite useful as a chaperon for the girls. But they have never taken 
the place in my heart of my California boys.” 

I remember you used to spoil us shamefully,” was the laughing 
rejoinder. 

But when are you going to sail ?” she asked. 

To-morrow morning,” was the reply. 

So soon ?” she exclaimed. But I am burning with impatience 
to hear the story ; for I know there is a story.” 

First he satisfied her curiosity as to the years passed in South 
America, then briefly, but with intense feeling, related the strange 
story of his life. 

Once during the recital she started forward with shining eyes and 
parted lips : it was when he mentioned the name by which Elizabeth 
had registered at Pacific Grove. But she quickly controlled herself, 
and, in his absorption, he did not notice it. 

To think,” she ejaculated, when he had finished, that I should 
have lived so near to a hero of romance without knowing it ! But 
Elizabeth still loves you,” she added, with conviction. 

He shook his head in despairing protest. 

^^Do women always marry for love?” she asked, scornfully. 
‘‘ There are many women who have the coveted happiness snatch^ 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


621 


from their hands; there are some among them that are spared the 
added bitterness of a commercial marriage/^ 

He knew instinctively that she was thinking of her own past, and 
for a moment he did not speak. 

That is all over for me,^^ he said, at last. The only thing left 
for me now is to fulfil my father^s wishes.^^ 

And write us more books,^’ she instantly added. 

You forget,’^ he rejoined, ^^that Jason Hildreth is dead and that 
Charles de Blainville is a Frenchman. Whatever he writes will be in 
his own tongue.^^ 

I had not thought of that,^^ she returned, gravely. I am very 
sorry. But how is the public to be deceived as to the manner of its 
popular novelist^s disappearance?’^ 

I have taken care of that,” he explained. Before I set foot in 
France, telegrams will be received in different parts of the world 
announcing the death of Jason Hildreth. His property has already 
been transferred to the new, or, rather, the old name.” 

When he rose to go, she insisted on his remaining to dinner and 
meeting her cousins. She introduced him as Mr. de Blainville, a Cali- 
fornia friend on his way to Paris, his native place. 

When he went away at last, she excused herself to the family on 
the plea of being tired. But when she had gone up to her room she 
knelt beside her trunk and took from it a packet containing a daguerro- 
type and a bundle of letters yellowed with age. For several moments 
she held the picture in her hands, looking at the frank and manly 
young face with tear-dimmed eyes. She remembered that for years 
she had never gone to sleep without pressing it to her lips. But time 
had softened the poignancy of her grief, though it had not obliterated 
the face from her heart. She laid the picture down at last, and untied 
the bundle of letters, touching them with gentle hands. 

It is the same name,” she said softly to herself. Elizabeth must 
have married his son. Poor boy ! and she did not love him.” But at 
the same time her heart turned with pity to Jason Hildreth. 

She opened the faded pages, still faintly exhaling the odor of 
lavender, in which they had long ago been kept, and read again the 
love-words of nearly four decades ago. There were six letters in 
all : the first three written in the gallant style of a past generation, 
and enclosing some quaint, sweet verses ; the next two full of passion- 
ate protests and pleading for her to act according to the dictates of her 
heart, and not to yield to the authority of family pride ; the last was 
a despairing farewell, closing with these words : 

I am going away, back to my father in the West. My ambitions 
are over; my hopes are dead. I have closed the studio that has seemed 
to me sacred ever since you came to it to have your portrait painted ; 
I am going back to my father’s office. I have found that what the 
world demands of a man is the making of money ; and I go forth to 
fulfil my destiny. Farewell, my sweet; my dream among women, 
farewell.” 

Even now, a tear fell from the mist in her eyes and blotted the 
name that was signed below. The name was Laurence Hanford. 


622 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


The white hands trembled a little as they folded away the papers 
in the quaintly sealed envelopes and tied up the packet and replaced it 
in the trunk. The fragrance of lavender brought back the recurrence 
of sensations that sometimes an odor or a sound will bring after the 
lapse of years; for one instant the faithful heart thrilled again with 
the ecstatic joy of the perfect moonlit night when, standing in the 
garden under the stars, the maiden had listened to the world-old tale 
and felt the first kiss of love on her lips. 

With a sigh, Miss Vaughn returned to herself, and, rising from 
her knees before the trunk, stood in front of the mirror and loosened 
the soft coils of her white hair. 

I am glad he did not marry Miss Gordon for her millions,^’ she 
said to herself, a little irrelevantly. ^^She was not worthy of him, 
and Elizabeth is. If I could only bring them together ! but how can 
it be, when I do not know where she is?^^ She sighed gently as she 
remembered that she had not sought to find whither it was that Lau- 
rence Hanford had gone out of her life, and that she had never known. 

The next morning, as the steamer moved slowly out to sea, the last 
face that Charles de Blainville saw on shore was the sweet face of Miss 
Vaughn, who leaned on the arm of her cousin^s husband and waved 
her handkerchief till he could see no more. It was the last time he 
ever saw her; but the memory of her face never faded, and, under 
the knowledge of subsequent events, became yet more dear to him. 


X. 

Arrived at Havre, Charles de Blainville had gone at once to Paris 
and employed lawyers and detectives to look up the family estates. 
He knew they had passed out of the family into strange, perhaps 
bourgeois, hands ; but he hoped to locate all of the ancestral property, 
feeling sure that he could offer for it prices that the owners would not 
refuse. But, strangely enough, no trace of the lost estates, no record 
of Armand de Blainville, could be found. There was some terrible 
mistake, some mystery that the son could not fathom. 

He had wandered over the strange city, seeking in vain to identify 
the villa that lingered in his memory. Doubtless it had been torn 
down and replaced by a more modern structure. He established him- 
self in the suburbs that seemed most to resemble the scenes of his 
childhood whose elusive vision the years had dimmed. He tried to 
mingle with the people, but, though their speech came with perfect 
ease to his lips, they themselves seemed alien to him. He became a 
familiar figure on the streets, always looking as though searching for 
some place he could not find. People began to touch their foreheads 
significantly as he passed, and the children to whisper among them- 
selves le fou.^^ As he entered his solicitor’s office one day, he heard 
a by-stander murmur in an aside to a companion, Void le maniaque 
des dats.” The clerks in the offices where the records were kept, at 
first patient and polite, now barely concealed their contempt, or treated 


JASON HILDRETH S IDENTITY. 023 

him with mocking courtesy. Only the wealth which he was known 
to possess protected him from open derision. 

At last, discouraged, he turned from the city and wandered through 
the provinces, thinking that some strange trick of memory had deceived 
him as to the location of his early home. But here, as in Paris, his 
search was fruitless. 

Thus a year passed, and with the deepening hopelessness of his 
search he became conscious of an increasing desire to see once more the 
familiar shores of his adopted country. Perhaps in his wanderings 
there he might chance upon the home he had known and loved so 
many years; he might find that nameless city where he had lived. 
He knew that he would recognize it, — that no changes of eight years 
could veil it from his memory. And there he would find the key to 
the mystery of his life ; there he would settle down at last and find 
rest. 

And so he turned his face with new hope, but utter bewilderment, 
to the west. His belief in his identity had been shaken ; he had 
become a wanderer on the face of the earth, a man without a country, 
even without a local habitation and a name. 

He still called himself Charles de Blainville; for Jason Hildreth 
had long been thought dead. He had read his own obituaries, and the 
comments on his work by critics who believed him beyond the reach 
of their pens. He had been thought lost in a pleasure-yacht that went 
down off* the coast near Rio de Janeiro, and the public had mourned 
him as a genius whose fire was prematurely quenched. Only Dr. Rich- 
mond and his wife and Miss Vaughn, who were pledged to secrecy, 
knew the identity of Jason Hildreth and ‘^le maniaque des 6tats.^^ 
But the doctor himself had lately lost track of him ; for with the 
doubt of his identity Charles de Blainville had ceased to write even to 
him. His only desire was to find the home where he had passed his 
boyhood and youth. So it happened that one day he landed in New 
York and began his wanderings afresh in the New World. 

He knew no one in the city, for Miss Vaughn had long before 
returned to California ; and after a few days of rest and irresolution 
he bought a ticket for a city in one of the North Central States, 
strongly impressed with the idea that somewhere in that section of the 
country he would find his home. He remembered distinctly the nature 
of the scenery with which his boyhood had been familiar, — the rolling 
green hills, the wooded stretches of land, and the river, in a bend of 
which the city was situated. He even recalled the noise of the traflSc 
and the smoke of the factories in the town. 

At night, as he lay in his berth and watched through the window 
the panorama of moonlit landscape, he seemed to feel the force of a 
magnet drawing him on and on ; and when he fell asleep and dreamed, 
he saw Elizabeth, no longer as the Lorelei on the rocks, but as her own 
sweet self, standing among the roses in the garden, as he had seen her 
first. And as he dreamed, in the far-off* city toward which he was 
speeding, a woman knelt by an open window and let the moonlight 
fall on her upturned face. It was a beautiful face, with broad low 
brow, and dark eyes dimmed with tears. The cheeks that had once 


624 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


been round were thinner now, the firm chin trembled, the breast heaved 
with sobs. 

Oh, God,^^ she moaned, if it might only be he ! if he would 
only return to me 

But the sky was far off and cold, and she withdrew her gaze 
from it. She looked beyond the maples and the lawn, with its 
carefully trimmed hedge, across the street, and let her eyes rest on 
the garden. The leaves of the magnolias glistened in the moonlight, 
and a few rare blossoms shone white amid the green. The wind 
stirred lightly through her hair and brought to her the odor of violets 
and mignonette. 

And the train sped on in the moonlit night ; and in the morning 
the sleeper awoke with the name of Elizabeth on his lips. 

Might I not forgive her?^^ he said to himself. ‘^If she believed 
me dead, and her father forced her into an unhappy marriage 

The train gave a sudden plunge and stood still. He looked out 
and saw that they had stopped at a way-station, — one of the sleepy 
little country places that dot the railroad line in this section of the 
country every three or four miles. From the modest little station 
stretched a single long street lined with great maples; beyond the 
hotel, the store, and the blacksmith-shop, extended on either side a row 
of white-and -yellow cottages with green window-blinds. The usual 
loungers were about the place, — the station-master, the freight-agent, 
and several farmers and idlers from the town. The traveller glanced 
carelessly by the little group, his thoughts still busy with Elizabeth. 

But she is gone,^^ he said to himself : however I may forgive 
her and long for her, she is gone, and I cannot find her.’^ 

• The bell rang, and the train pulled slowly out of the station, the 
voices of the people drowned in the scream of the locomotive. 

Charles de Blainville peered again through the slats of his blind 
with idle curiosity ; but just as his car, which was the last in the train, 
passed out of the d^pot, he gave a stifled cry and fixed his staring eyes 
on a face in the little crowd. It was the face of Elizabeth’s father. 

He started up, and, after making a hasty toilet, inquired of the 
porter the name of the station. 

Coleville, sah,” the man replied. 

What is the next station, and how soon can I take a train back ?” 
the impatient traveller demanded. 

But yo’ ticket reads ” began the puzzled porter. 

Answer my questions, please,” de Blainville interposed, sharply. 

Well, sah, the next station is Linton, and yo’ can take the noon 
express back.” 

The train whirled on, and the young traveller was left alone with 
his thoughts. To him the face was a new assurance of the reality of 
his past. He had begun to think it might have been a vivid dream, 
an illusion of his illness; that Elizabeth herself, whom he had not 
seen for years, was a phantom of a disordered brain. Upon this man 
now hung his destiny. He knew his name, his home, his past ; and, 
much as de Blainville despised and hated him, he was eager to find 
him. It seemed to him that there remained lacking to his knowledge 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


625 


nothing but the names of the localities with which his life’s drama was 
concerned, and perhaps his own name ; and these Elizabeth’s father 
could supply. 

Arrived at the town, he searched in vain for Simeon Howard. 
There was no one of that name at the hotel, nor had any of the people 
of whom he inquired heard of him. He traversed the single long 
street of the village, turned back discouraged, and retraced his steps to 
the station. 

Just as he reached it, a buggy drove up to the door, and the man 
for whom he was searching alighted and entered the depot. 

I’ll wire you about the lots to-morrow,” he said to the man who 
held the lines. 

All right,” was the response ; and the speaker turned his horse 
and drove rapidly away. 

De Blainville stepped up to the new-comer and bowed. 

Excuse me,” he said ; but are you Mr. Simeon Howard ?” 

No,” was the reply : you are mistaken in the person.” 

^‘Pardon me,” de Blainville rejoined; ‘^my memory for names is 
not good ; but you are certainly an old acquaintance of mine. Per- 
haps you can remember me ?” 

The man looked at him sharply. The words sounded not unlike 
the opening of a confidence game; but the bearing of de Blainville 
disarmed his suspicion. 

It is possible I have met you,” he rejoined, politely ; there is 
even something familiar about your face ; but I cannot identify you. 
Your name ” 

Is Charles de Blainville,” said the young man. He watched his 
companion closely as he spoke, but the name seemed to make no im- 
pression upon him. 

You will pardon my persistence,” he continued ; but you have 
a daughter ” 

You are mistaken,” the other interrupted ; I have no daughter.” 

My God !” ejaculated de Blainville, paling; is she — dead?” 

For a moment the station and the little group of curious listeners 
swam before his eyes, and there was a sound as of the surf in his ears. 
But the voice of his companion calmed him. 

You have mistaken the person,” he was saying. I have never 
had a daughter.” 

Will you have patience, at least,” said de Blainville, with a sen- 
sation of intense relief, to tell me your name and residence ?” 

^‘My name,” the man replied, with a slight smile, ^^you have 
probably heard before; it is William Smith; and my business is in 
real estate.” 

He handed him his card and mentioned the name of the city where 
he lived. It was the same as that on the ticket in de Blainville’s 
pocket. 

The young man started with wonder as he read it. Was it the 
magnetic attraction of Elizabeth that had been drawing him to her, or 
had his random selection of a destination been suggested by some faint 
vibration of memory ? At any rate, he had lost time ; and he could 

VoL. LIX.— 40 


626 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


learn nothing from the man before him. But once in the city of his 
old home, he would remember ; and what he could not remember he 
could easily learn. 

When he was again seated in the train, a vague fear struck a chill 
to his heart. What if the city of his dream was only a mirage of the 
desert, that would transform itself to something strange when he ap- 
proached it? 


XI. 

As the train drew near his destination, his excitement visibly 
increased. His fear had melted away. He was certain now that he 
recognized familiar landmarks, — curves of the river, oak forests, and 
hills covered with vineyards. His eyes were riveted on the shifting 
landscape ; his breath came quick and fast. 

‘‘Now,^^ he said to himself, testing his recollections, ^‘just beyond 
that curve we will cross a forked bridge ; and as we emerge from it 
the city will lie before us.^’ 

He leaned eagerly from the window, striving to catch the first 
glimpse of his Mecca. As the train swung around the curve, the 
bridge appeared in sight, and the next moment they were thundering 
over it, past the fork in the centre, and out again under the open skies. 

Eureka ! eureka!’^ the traveller muttered, as he looked out and saw 
a succession of dusty streets, lined with tall, smoke-grimed buildings, 
glide by. The train thundered into the depot ; he alighted and 
looked about him. 

“ Main Street should be one block to the right,’^ he soliloquized. 
Then his heart leaped at the thought that he had remembered a name 
at last. 

He walked over to the main thoroughfare, closely observing every- 
thing he passed. He remembered the houses well ; the very gables 
and chimneys were familiar to him. He started with surprise at sight 
of a well-known but long-forgotten figure approaching him. It was 
an idiot girl of whom he had not thought since he left home. He 
smiled grimly at the irony of fate that had thrown her first, of all his 
old acquaintances, across his path. 

He stopped at the crossing as he reached Main Street. It was the 
same, and yet changed. The horse-cars and omnibuses had been super- 
seded by electric cars ; on the opposite corner, where a line of unpre- 
tentious business houses had stood, a new hotel had been erected. 

It was yet early in the morning, but as he stood staring about him 
he was jostled by streams of people passing up and down the street. 
Struck with a sudden thought, he began to look for familiar faces in 
the crowd. Perhaps some one would recognize him and call him by 
name. He did not realize how much the years had changed him. He 
had left his home young and smooth-faced, filled with buoyant hopes 
for the future ; he returned to it with features partially concealed by a 
full fair beard, with lines on his forehead and about his eyes, and the 
expression of a man who has lived and suffered much. Nevertheless, 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


627 


he was still a handsome man, in the early prime of life, and many 
looked at him the second time as they passed. But no look of recog- 
nition flashed in their eyes; no word, no hand-clasp, greeted him on 
his return. 

His meditations were broken by a sudden involuntary ejaculation 
from his own lips. Although the day was cloudless and clear, a man 
had gone by with an umbrella under his arm, — a handsome, elderly 
man with clear-cut features and erect carriage. The form had been 
familiar to the observer from his boyhood ; he remembered him as a 
lawyer possessing the single eccentricity of always carrying an umbrella, 
summer and winter, through fair and cloudy weather. He remem- 
bered the man perfectly ; but the name eluded him. 

He was standing in front of a drug-store ; he looked up and read 
the sign, Martin Brothers.’^ He remembered, more from the asso- 
ciations of the place than from the name, that one of the brothers was 
dark and the other fair. He stepped inside. The fair brother was 
bending over an account-book on the desk ; the dark one came up 
behind the counter to wait on him. They were a little older than he 
remembered them, but unmistakably the same. 

He made a trifling .purchase, removing his hat as he did so, under 
the pretext of wiping the perspiration from his forehead, but really 
with the hope that the druggist would recognize him. In this he was 
disappointed. Taking his package, he walked out again on the street. 
Was he indeed Charles de Blainville, or had he mistaken the name, as 
Dr. Richmond had long ago suggested? Truly, the name itself was 
of little importance ; it might be detached from him entirely, and his 
personality and his past experiences remain the same. But it certainly 
was of importance in his relations with the world. Without it, he 
could not establish his connection with the past, and, most important 
of all, he could hardly hope to And Elizabeth. Notwithstanding his 
recent experiences, he still hoped for recognition that would render 
direct questions on his part unnecessary; and his mind still clung 
tenaciously to the name. He remembered the pride with which his 
father uttered it; and he could hear the liquid syllables fall softly 
from Elizabeth’s lips. Then, had not Elizabeth herself recognized the 
initials and replied to his personals in the San Francisco papers ? 

Inconsequently, as it seemed, in the perturbed current of his thought, 
he remembered with sudden amusement that it was market-day, and 
wondered if the time-honored institution of his youth remained intact. 
During his long residence in California and in foreign lands he had 
probably not thought once of the old custom that obtained in this city 
of the Central States. But now he remembered that no social or 
monetary distinction prevented the ‘‘ heads of families” from attending 
the early market and selecting the freshest butter and eggs and vegeta- 
bles for the family use. Nor was the sex line drawn too closely ; many 
ladies whose natural providers were unable to perform this branch 
of their duties would not intrust the important matter of selection 
to servants. He remembered a distinguished doctor and an eminent 
lawyer whom he had often seen with baskets on their arms, jostling 
against teamsters and washerwomen as they made their way through 


628 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


the throng ; and, with an irrepressible chuckle, he tried to imagine 
his friend Dr. Richmond, in irreproachable dress, threading his way 
through the promiscuous crowd. 

While absorbed in his recollections, he had turned his steps toward 
the old market-place, and soon found himself, under the shelter of the 
market-house, watching the two opposing streams of people as they 
surged by. The same stalls lined the edge of the side- walks, presided 
over by the same grizzled countrymen and rosy-cheeked women, as 
before, and flanked by the same wagons, containing the reserve supplies 
of vegetables and fruits. Everything seemed unchanged : it was as 
though he had stood but yesterday in the same spot, watching the street- 
drama of eight years ago. More than one familiar face passed him in 
the crowd. He saw an ex-mayor with a great basket over his arm, 
a prominent merchant tasting a roll of butter in a neighboring stall, 
and the wife of a railroad superintendent hesitating over the selec- 
tion of some home-made’^ cheese. Laborers and mechanics whose 
faces he remembered passed him, in overalls and jeans ; a lame man 
whose peculiar limp he recollected, and a burly fellow with a familiar 
scar across his bronzed cheek, approached. But all passed him by, 
careless and unheeding : he seemed as invisible to them as though he 
wore the fabled fern-cap of Teutonic story. It was not here, in the 
public market-place, that he must seek recognition : so with a sigh he 
passed out of the crowd and began wandering aimlessly about the streets. 

Many buildings he remembered ; others by their unfamiliarity he 
knew to be of recent construction. He passed the theatre, and re- 
membered the celebrities he had seen on its stage ; he even recalled the 
subject of the drop-curtain, Aurora in her car, riding the clouds, and 
smiled again at the remark he had once heard a woman make that it 
was Elijah going to heaven in his chariot. He passed the court-house, 
the public library, and the city hall ; and as he looked at them a throng 
of recollections crowded upon his brain. But still his name escaped 
him ; and had it not been for the thought of his experiences in Paris, 
he would have sworn that it was Charles de Blainville. 

He had come out on Main Street again, and walked idly along 
until he came to a bend at the foot of a hill. Here he stopped and 
looked up with a sudden flood of memories. There were two hills 
before him, between which ran a high-road. On the hill to the left 
stood a Catholic church, whose beautiful chimes he distinctly recalled. 
As he stood gazing, the bells smote softly on his ear, and the people 
began to assemble for some special service. On the other hill, its 
colors softened by the touch of time, stood the old High School he had 
attended when a boy. The road wound sinuous around the hill, up 
whose rugged side a succession of projecting rocks formed the short- 
cut’’ for the scaling of which he and his companions had often been 
punished in those once-forgotten days. 

As he turned at last and pursued his way around the bend, he saw 
approaching him one of the town eccentrics, a portly negro who fol- 
lowed his vocation on the street. 

Any washing-tubs to ho-oop?” he bellowed, with the old familiar 
inflection. 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 629 

De Blainville felt tempted to stop and claim his recognition, but 
resisted the impulse and passed on. 

The street had merged into a road with irregular side- walks, lined 
with houses surrounded by ample lawns. He had left the business 
part of the city behind him, and was approaching the suburb in which 
was located his old home. 

Before long,’^ he mused, I will come to the old ^ plank walk.^ 

But in this he was disappointed ; for the old walk had been re- 
moved and a brick pavement laid down in its place. The street-cars, 
too, to his surprise, passed him and went on out of sight. 

But for the most part the houses were unchanged, save that here 
and there some were darkened and dingy and others were freshened 
with new repairs. He smiled at the lines of white cottages with green 
or buff window-blinds, that he had not thought of for so many years. 

Occasionally he passed faces that he remembered; but no one 
smiled or greeted him. 

feel like Rip Van Winkle,” he thought to himself: my old 
haunts have forgotten me.” 

He came at last to a long, low house, that had once been white, 
and whose veranda was reached by a short, steep flight of steps. He 
remembered the place trim and well kept ; now the paint had fallen 
away in patches from the walls, and the crazy steps were broken and 
discolored. Here an old Scotchman had lived who was noted for his 
eccentricities of speech. He smiled at the recollection of one night 
when he and some boy-companions had crouched outside, in the shadow 
of the fence, and listened to the shrill voice of the old man lifted in 
family prayers. There had been a temperance revival” in the city, 
and he turned his supplication on the subject of his thought. High 
and quavering rose the voice, the r’s rolled heavily and the words 
rising shrill and insistent at the close : O Lord, don’t let the rum- 
sellers sell any more rum. Do you hear me, now ? Do you hear me, 
now ?” 

Amused at the recollection, de Blainville was passing on, when his 
eye was suddenly arrested by an innovation. A new pump stood in 
the yard, where he remembered there had been an old well with a 
windlass. With the recollection of the well came the memory of a day 
when he was returning from school with Elizabeth and they stopped 
to get a drink. As the girl reached over to dip the cup in the brim- 
ming bucket he had drawn up, a book she held under her arm slipped 
and dropped splashing in the well. 

His train of thought was broken by a sudden thrill of excitement. 

I did not know Elizabeth when she was a child,” he protested to 
himself. But memory was inexorable. The sweet child-face was 
before him and seemed to look at him with reproachful eyes. 

I will go mad,” he thought, if I do not solve this mystery.” 

But the sun was high in the heavens, and he remembered that he 
had taken no thought of what he should eat or what he should drink, 
and had left at the d6p6t the wherewithal he should be clothed. 

He did not wish to go to a hotel and register as Charles de Blain- 
ville, although his thought clung desperately to the name. This after- 


630 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY, 


noon he would go to his father’s foundry and his old home : surely he 
would discover all. So, retracing his steps to the business part of the 
city, he entered a restaurant and made a hasty meal. 


XII. 

The foundry stood in that portion of the city devoted to factories 
and dingy tenements, occupied by their operatives and the lower classes 
of Jews. As he threaded the grimy streets, swarming with dirty 
children, saw the unkempt women at the doors and windows, and 
passed occasionally a factory employee in his shirt-sleeves or a peddler 
with his pack, the scene seemed like a familiar slide adjusted in the 
stereopticon of memory through which he had been looking all day. 
He remembered the way perfectly, and at length came to the corner 
opposite the foundry. Dark and gloomy it stood ; but through its open 
doors gleamed the merry fire that had held his fascinated gaze when 
a child. He looked over the door for the name Armand de Blain- 
ville;” but what he saw was Wilkinson Bros.” The name sounded 
familiar as he read it ; probably after his father’s death it had passed 
into the hands of some one he had known. 

He crossed the street, and, finding the office, pushed open the 
door, that stood ajar, and stepped in. An elderly man with gray side- 
whiskers turned from the desk where he had been writing and looked 
up inquiringly. 

I beg pardon,” the intruder began, but I am looking for an old 
friend of mine who once owned a foundry here. Indeed, I think this 
must be the very place. Will you tell me who was the former 
owner ?” 

‘^My father,” was the reply. ^^No name but Wilkinson has ever 
been connected with this foundry.” 

De Blainville passed his hand in bewilderment across his forehead. 
He could not at once adjust his thought to this new phase of the 
mystery. 

^^My friend was a Frenchman,” he said at last. ‘^He had a son 
who was a child when they arrived in this city, perhaps thirty years 
ago. He owned a foundry here until eight years since, when his affairs 
became involved, and it was reported that he died. Do you know of 
any such person ?” 

Mr. Wilkinson shook his head. 

There must be some mistake,” he said. What was your friend’s 
name ?” 

The name had been purposely suppressed with the object of 
drawing it out; but, finding his effort fruitless, the young man replied 
that it was Armand de Blainville. 

Armand de Blainville,” repeated the listener, musingly. am 
quite sure I never heard the name before.” 

When his visitor had gone, Mr. Wilkinson leaned back medita- 
tively in his chair. 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 631 

I wish I had asked that man his name/^ he said to himself : 
there is something strangely familiar about his face/^ 

The wanderer turned his steps up the well-known street, that soon 
changed to a suburban road from which the ground broke away on 
one side in hills, on the other in hollows. He walked between rows 
of tall poplars through whose regular foliage he caught a glimpse of 
sycamores and beeches on the slopes beyond. He knew the road would 
come out upon his father’s garden, and beyond it, past his old home. 
There was but one thing left for him to do; to go to the memory- 
haunted house and, within its walls, find himself and the way to 
Elizabeth. 

He did not hurry over the road ; now that the solution of the 
mystery was so near, he felt a certain reluctance, an undefined fear. 
Perhaps, after all, Elizabeth had been willingly false to him ; perhaps 
she did not love him. Then she might be far away beyond his reach ; 
she might even — he shivered at the thought — be dead. 

He turned from the road into the private drive that he remembered. 
Here his path was deeper in shade, and soon he caught the fragrance 
of flowers on the still air. He quickened his steps and in a few 
moments came to the beginning of the garden. It was not greatly 
changed ; but he noticed that the varieties of lilies, Elizabeth’s favorite 
flower, had been increased, and the magnolias and the oleanders in tubs 
were larger and more luxuriant than he remembered them. 

He came to the cross-road and looked for the first time on his old 
home. He stopped, and, leaning against the high fence at the side of 
the garden, let his eyes wander lovingly over the lawn, the carefully 
trimmed hedge, and, finally, the stately old house itself, whose simple 
architecture heightened the massive effect of the compact stone walls. 
The wide verandas where he had sat and built the dream-castles of his 
boyhood, the upper balcony opening out of the nursery, where he had 
made his first essays at climbing and been pulled back by his terrified 
nurse, his study-window, through which he could see faintly the out- 
lines of a desk where his own secretary had stood, with his study-chair 
before it, all greeted him like the loved features of a familiar face. 
But as he let his eyes wander again over the lawn and the hedge, a cry 
of astonishment broke from his lips. Where the house of Elizabeth’s 
aunt had stood, in the midst of beautiful grounds, was nothing but a 
wide field planted in corn. Nor was there a line of rose-bushes at the 
side of the lawn, but only an Osage-orange hedge, like that surround- 
ing the rest of the grounds. He looked below, down the quiet street, 
and saw two small brick houses, and beyond them a stretch of sloping 
meadow. Farther yet, half concealed by sycamores and elms, rose the 
brick walls and slate roofs of the missing house. It was so strange 
that for a moment he thought he must be dreaming. But no. He 
looked again at his own home, and saw it was unchanged ; then back 
at the distant house, and remembered it distinctly. That the heavy 
brick pile could have been moved was inconceivable; some strange 
trick of memory had deceived him for more than seven years. And, 
yet, could he ever forget the night he had first seen Elizabeth, a white- 
robed figure standing in the garden just beyoi^d the hedge of roses? 


632 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


Excited by this inexplicable confusion of recollections, he crossed 
the street hastily, and, opening the iron gate, walked up the gravel 
walk, bordered, as of old, with violets and mignonette. 

Stepping on the veranda, he paused a moment in front of the door, 
then rang the bell with the feeling that he was striking the hour of fate. 
It was answered by a trim-looking maid, who looked at him inquiringly. 

‘‘ Is your mistress at home ?” he asked. As he spoke, he caught 
sight of a cabinet of minerals in the hall, that he remembered as his 
father’s. 

No : she went to the cemetery,” replied the girl. 

When will she be back?” he asked. 

I don’t know ; perhaps not before dinner,” she said. 

He started away, but turned back with an after-thought. 

What is your mistress’s name?” he asked. 

Who shall I say called?” inquired the wary maid. 

Never mind that,” he replied : I will come again. What did 
you say her name is?” 

Never mind that,” was the retort : she told me not to admit 
peddlers and agents.” 

De Blainville turned away with a smile. He would return that 
evening, and, if necessary, send in his card. Meantime, why not go to 
the cemetery himself? It was the only important part of the city that 
he had not visited. 

It was not a long walk across the meadows, and soon he found 
himself before the entrance. A new arched gate- way gave the place 
at first an air of unfamiliarity ; but this disappeared as he entered and 
passed up the well-known winding drive. 

After walking a short distance, he turned instinctively to the left, 
and made his way almost automatically between the well-kept lots and 
monuments glistening in the sun. He had entered the finest part of 
the grounds, and again and again, as he looked at the names carved on 
the white stones, they struck like echoes on his memory. 

He came at last to one of the finest monuments on the grounds, a 
tall shaft of red granite. Behind it were five white headstones ; beside 
each lay a mass of beautiful fresh flowers, among which were several 
rare magnolias. He looked up at the monument and read the name, 
‘‘Laurence Hanford.” “Her husband,” he thought, with a thrill. 
But no, it could not be; for farther on he read, “aged 82.” Under it 
was the name of “ Laura, his wife.” On another face was repeated 
the name Laurence Hanford, and under it was that of his wife, Alice. 
On the third face the name occurred again, this time alone. 

“ That must have been her husband,” he thought; and he looked up. 

With a cry, he started back ; for he saw Elizabeth standing in the 
path with a watering-pot in her hand. She had stepped so silently, 
and he had been so absorbed in the contemplation of the names, that 
he had not noticed her approach. 

She looked at him with startled, wondering eyes. 

“ Elizabeth !” he exclaimed, starting impetuously toward her. 

The watering-pot fell to the ground, and she stood trembling and 
white before him. 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 633 

Who do you think I am she asked, in a low voice tense with 
excitement. 

You are Elizabeth Howard, he exclaimed ; or you were Eliza- 
beth Howard before you married.^’ 

And you,^’ she asked, letting her eyes linger searchingly on his 
face, though she was trembling so that she could scarcely stand, who 
are you 

He dropped his head on his breast and answered in a low tone. 

For seven years, he said, I thought I was Charles de Blainville.’^ 

A great light broke across her beautiful face ; she took a step nearer, 
and, after another glance that seemed to penetrate his soul, suddenly 
held out her arms to him. 

The next moment she was lying on his breast, not sobbing, but 
with great tears coursing slowly down her cheeks. 

My darling, my darling,’^ he exclaimed, you did not forget me, 
you did not cease to love me when your father persuaded you 

I have never ceased to love you,^^ she cried. 

He did not ask her his name; for the time he had forgotten the 
mystery that enshrouded his life and all the strange incongruities of 
the day ; he knew only that he held Elizabeth against his heart, and 
that she loved him. 

At length she lifted herself from his breast and slipped from his 
reluctant arms. 

I will water my flowers,^^ she said ; then you must come home 
with me.’^ 

A moment later they were walking together across the meadow 
through which he had come. He wondered where she lived, but for- 
bore to question her, choosing rather to be guided like a child to the 
solution of the mystery, now so imminent. Instead of questions and 
replies, their words were })rotestations of love, such as they had ex- 
changed in the first days of their courtship. 

They were yet under the spell of the fascination that usually comes 
but once in a lifetime, when he observed to his surprise that they were 
approaching his old home. As she led him through the gate and up 
the gravelled walk, he turned to her appealingly and laid his hand on 
her arm. 

Elizabeth, I do not understand,’^ he said. Did you buy the 
place?” 

Don’t ask questions now,” she answered, smiling : “after a while 
I will explain everything to you.” 

Her own mind was puzzled by many details of the mystery ; but, 
having divined the central truth, she was willing to wait for future 
enlightenment, being chiefly concerned as to the best way of divulging 
what she perceived he did not understand. 

She opened the door and preceded him into the hall. As he entered, 
he looked about him in amazement. He could see through open door- 
ways and drawn portieres that the parlors and dining-room were essen- 
tially unchanged in furnishings and general arrangement. As she led 
him into the back parlor, he noticed that some fine paintings and 
statuettes and rare vases had been added to the room, and the gas had 


634 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


been superseded by electric lights ; there were also a tea-table and one 
or two easy-chairs that he did not recognize. Otherwise, he was sure 
that the room was unchanged. The thick Persian carpet, the rugs of 
Russian fur, the Turkish tapestry, the heavy high-backed mahogany 
chairs, and the claw.-legged card-table that stood in the corner under a 
bronze bust of Apollo, were the same that he remembered of old. 

First of all,^^ said she, as she drew out for him an easy-chair and 
seated herself at the tea-table, I will make you some tea.^^ 

He acquiesced without question, waiting wonderingly for her to 
speak ; but she chatted on indifterent subjects, in her rich musical voice 
that thrilled and filled him with the ecstasy of his old love. 

At length she rang for the maid and told her to order dinner served 
for two. 

While we are waiting,’^ she said to her companion, rising as she 
spoke, we will walk in the garden. I think you will admire the 
flowers.^^ 

As they passed out through the hall, the girl watched them curi- 
ously from behind the dining-room door. 

^^That^s the way with widows,’^ she said to herself, tossing her 
head contemptuously. Going to the cemetery to take flowers to 
her husband\s grave, and coming back with a strange young man that 
nobody could tell wasn’t an agent or a housebreaker, for all I know. 
Didn’t even know who lived here, and wouldn’t answer a civil question. 
She won’t wear her black much longer, if it does suit her complexion. 
But you come here, mister,” making a grimace at his back, that was 
just disappearing through the front door, ‘^and I go.” 

A moment later the two stood together in the garden. 

‘^Do you remember these lilies?” she said, as they stopped before 
a luxurious growth of flowers. 

Oh, yes,” he said ; they are callas. They are scarce here, but 
very common in California. I have seen hedges of them there, be- 
tween the lawns.” 

She looked at him quickly, and a question trembled on her lips, 
but she withheld it. 

Many parts of the garden he recalled, and spoke of a number of 
slight changes that had been made. 

You are quite a gardener, Elizabeth,” he said. 

You praise me too much,” she replied. have kept Harvey, 
your old gardener. You remember him, do you not?” 

Certainly,” was the reply ; he lives — he must live in the first 
little red brick house down there.” 

Elizabeth nodded a smiling assent. 

And he has a wonderful scientific knowledge of plants,” he con- 
tinued, testing his recollections ; ^Mf I remember rightly, he knows 
little else.” 

Again Elizabeth nodded. Little by little she led him to talk of 
old friends and acquaintances, without coming dangerously near to 
their own relations or the mystery that had separated them. Many 
of his old comrades that he had not thought of for years he inquired 
about : some had entered professional or business life in their own city. 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 


635 


others had gone away, and a few were dead. His apathetic wonder 
had given place to animation, and they laughed and sighed together 
over the changes of the years. 

When they returned to the house and entered the dining-room, the 
young man felt that he was indeed at home. The same table, with 
the same china and silver and cut glass, the same chairs of antique 
oak, even the same etchings on the walls, were there as before his de- 
parture. As in a dream he took his place opposite Elizabeth ; as he 
looked at her beautiful face, a passionate sense of possession seized 
him, and he vowed that nothing should separate them again. 

When the waiting-maid had served the first course and retired, he 
looked at his companion with a question he could not repress. 

You seem to have everything as it was in my father^s time,^^ he 
said. Is the gallery of ancestors unchanged 

She glanced up quickly and smiled. “ I will take you up-stairs 
after dinner,’’ was the only reply she made. 

Then she turned the conversation into the safer channels of litera- 
ture and art. 

For a long time,” she remarked, I have read no novel that in- 
terested me so much as the last one of Jason Hildreth’s. It is a pity 
he died so young.” 

Ah, yes,” he answered, avoiding her eyes ; but it may be a 
better man will take his place.” 

She started and looked up quickly with a question in her eyes. 
Then she opened her lips as though to continue the subject, but in- 
stead, after an instant’s hesitation, turned the conversation in a new 
direction. 

After dinner, she fulfilled her promise and conducted him up the 
broad flight of stairs to the hallway above. 

First of all,” she said, slipping her arm in his, I want to take 
you to your old study. I think you will find it unchanged.” 

They entered the room as she spoke. He looked about him won- 
deringly. Everything was indeed as he must have left it, even to the 
pile of manuscript on the secretary, held down by an ivory paper- 
weight. 

I am going to leave you here,” she said, drawing out his study- 
chair and placing it before the desk ; ‘‘ and I want you to read this 
manuscript. I think it will explain to you what you want to know. 
And when you want me, darling,” she added, laying her arm about, 
his neck, ring the bell, and I will come to you.” 

She drew down his face and kissed him on the lips : the next mo- 
ment she was gone. 


XIII. 

He sat down and began to read. At first he followed the words 
with amazement, then with intense absorption. The little Swiss clock 
on the mantel struck the half-hour and the hour, and he did not 
hear it. 


636 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITV. 


Meantime, the mistress of the mansion sat below, counting the 
moments and awaiting with breathless anxiety the result of her ex- 
periment. As time passed and the bell did not ring, she became un- 
easy and began to pace the floor, her light step making no noise in the 
thickness of the carpet. 

At last the reader reached the last page of the manuscript. A 
great light had flashed across his face and transfigured it. He arose, 
staggering with excitement and joy. 

My darling,^^ he cried, groping on the wall for the bell, which, in 
his nervous haste, he could not find ; my 

The next moment he reeled and fell heavily to the floor. 

The woman below heard, and in a moment had rushed up the 
stairs into the room and knelt beside the prostrate form. 

I might have known better,’^ she said, with bitter self-accusation. 
But she was not a woman to waste time and strength in idle regret. 
She rose and touched the bell, then knelt again and supported the dear 
head on her lap. 

Send Harvey for the doctor,’’ she said to the maid who appeared 
at the door, and bring me a basin of water and some brandy.” 

The girl disappeared with a disdainful shrug. 

‘‘ Nice doings for a respectable woman,” she snorted, — up-stairs 
alone with a strange man and holding his head in her lap. It’s time 
an honest girl was leaving. Her such a beautiful mourner, too,” she 
added, with regretful after-thought, as she hastened on her errand. 

By the time the doctor arrived, the women had placed the patient 
on the couch, without having succeeded in bringing him to conscious- 
ness, and the maid, at the command of her mistress, had left the room. 

As the old doctor entered, a little, drooping figure with clear-cut 
features and alert gray eyes, the woman arose, pale but calm, and met * 
him at the door. He was an old friend, the only doctor who had ever 
attended her in all her life; and as she stopped before him she laid a 
detaining hand on his arm. 

^^Be prepared for a surprise,” she said, as she led him to the 
patient. Do you know him ?” 

The doctor looked down at the motionless form, and started back 
as though he had seen an apparition. 

My God, yes !” he ejaculated, in amazement. 

^^He had forgotten his identity,” she continued, in hurried ex- 
planation; ^‘and I think the shock of recollection brought on this 
attack, whatever it is. Doctor,” she added, again laying her hand on 
his arm, will he die ? Is he already dead ?” 

The doctor, who had been examining his patient while she was 
speaking, slowly shook his head. 

No,” he said, he is not dead, but he is in almost a comatose 
condition. Send Harvey to me, and we will put him to bed. Stay in 
the room with him to-night, and do not under any consideration let 
him be disturbed. If I am not mistaken, in the morning he will 
awake and remember everything.” 

When they had put the patient to bed, without disturbing in the 
least his peculiar condition, and the gardener had retired, the doctor 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY, 637 

sat down and looked up at the white but self-possessed woman who 
had just entered the room. 

“ Now tell me all you know about him,” he said. 

He listened attentively to her narrative, and at its conclusion slowly 
nodded his head. 

I have heard of similar cases,” he said ; but I never came 
across one before. Dr. Camuset cites a similar instance in the Annates 
Medico-psyehologiques, I wish I could remain with him all night,” 
he added, but it is impossible, for my wife is very ill at home.” 

Promising to return early in the morning, and instructing her to 
send for him if there should be the slightest change, he went away. 

All that night she sat in the room, with the lamp turned low, and 
watched the sleeper, whose slumber had so much the semblance of 
death. The wind came up and murmured about the house, rustling 
the leaves of the maples, and sobbing under the eaves. She rose at 
last and closed the windows. The moon was hidden in clouds, and 
the air was heavy with vapors. A sense of oppression, that was not 
altogether due to the sultriness of the atmosphere, weighed upon her. 
At length the wind died down, and an ominous stillness brooded in 
the air. 

She looked through the door of the sleeping-room into the study 
beyond. The leaves of the manuscript were scattered over the floor, 
where they had fallen from his hand. Among them lay the fragments 
of a majolica vase that had been shaken from its place by his fall. In 
the uncertain moonlight, the shadows of the maples flickered across 
the window. 

The darkness of the night deepened, and suddenly a gust of wind 
blew large drops of rain against the window-panes. Pale flashes of 
lightning were succeeded by low mutterings of thunder. The wind in- 
creased in violence, and the scattering rain-drops became a downpour. 
The thunder rolled in heavy reverberations; and in the blinding 
flashes of light the watcher saw the great maples sway in the wind 
like reeds. She drew the curtains and bent anxiously over the sleeper. 
His face was calm and white ; his breast barely moved with the faintest 
flutter of breath. 

A blinding flash of light that penetrated the heavy curtains and 
illuminated the still room like the glow of a search-light was followed 
by a terrific peal of thunder. The house shook as in an earthquake ; 
the wind blew like the blast of a trumpet. 

There was the noise of steps running up the stairway, and one 
of the housemaids screamed. The mistress hurried out in the hall, 
closing the door behind her, and held back the terrified girl at the 
head of the stairs. 

^^Be quiet,” she commanded, in a low, firm tone; ^‘if the patient 
is disturbed, he will die.” 

^^But oh, ma’am,” whimpered the girl, wringing her hands, ^^the 
barn is struck; and what ever shall we do?” 

‘^Send Ned for Harvey, and tell him to put the fire out the best 
way he can, and not to send in the fire-alarm. Tell them to lead out 
the horses.” 


638 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


The girl disappeared ; the mistress returned to her watch. Amid 
the shrieks of the wind, she heard the cries of the men outside and 
the trampling and neighing of the terrified horses, mingled with the 
crackling of burning timber and the noise of crashing walls. She 
looked down at the face of the sleeper ; it was impassive as before. A 
great fear struck a deadly chill to her heart. 

‘^Suppose, instead of waking, he should slip away — beyond my 
reach at last?’^ 

She laid her ear over his heart; the pulsations were so faint as to 
be scarcely perceptible. For six hours he had not stirred from the 
position in which he had been placed. 

The storm subsided, and the wind died down with a shuddering 
wail. The darkness gave place to the lingering morning twilight ; 
and at last the sun broke radiantly over the hills. The watcher parted 
the curtains and looked out. The barn had burned to the ground ; 
the rail fence around the cornfield was lying over the beaten grain. 

She went back to the couch and bent a moment over the sleeper. 
She was sure now that it was a natural slumber in which he lay. His 
breath came regularly, and a natural flush had succeeded the pallor of 
his face. Confident that he was no longer in serious danger, she left 
the room and went below to order an early breakfast, that it might be 
ready as soon as he awoke. 


XIV. 

She was detained longer than she thought, supervising herself the 
cooking of his favorite dishes, and gathering for the table with her 
own hands the choicest flowers of the conservatory. She stood by the 
table a moment, surveying it with a look of satisfaction, then turned 
away to go up to his room and wait for him to open his eyes, with the 
light of reason restored. 

Before she reached the door, it opened, and he entered the room. 

What, Helen, are you up already V’ he asked, with a smile. 

She started toward him and held out her hands, her face trans- 
figured with joy. 

Dear little wife,” he said, as he drew her into his arms and kissed 

her. 

Do you remember, Laurence ?” she asked, wistfully. 

‘^Remember what?” he queried, smiling. “That 1 was going to 
read some more of my novel to you ? Of course I do. I have even 
added a paragraph or two this morning; and I have decided to call it 
^ The Golden Quest.’ The window must have been left open last 
night, though it was closed when I entered the room ; for the manu- 
script was scattered over the floor, and a vase had fallen from a bracket 
and broken.” 

In one awful moment of comprehension, Mrs. Hanford nerved 
herself to meet the new complication that had arisen. Her husband 
had indeed remembered the old life, but he had forgotten the new, and 


JASON HILDRETH ^S IDENTITY. 


639 


had taken up the thread of the past as though it had never been 
broken. But she smiled up at him and expressed her eagerness to 
hear the chapters of which he spoke. 

They had sat down at the table. As the servant entered the room 
with a tray, he looked up in surprise. 

Where is Lizzie this morning ?” he asked, as soon as she had 
retired. 

Mrs. Hanford’s lips whitened, and she hesitated a moment. 

She went away — suddenly,” she said, and I had to get some 
one else.” 

To her relief, he did not continue the subject, but reverted to his 
story. 

My book is becoming of absorbing interest to myself, at least,” 
he said, smiling. You do not know how much I have identified 
Elizabeth Howard with you and Charles de Blainville with myself. 
I am using a number of incidents of actual occurrence, too, such as 
our boat-ride when you wrote for me the translation of ^Seele des 
Menschen.’ As for Armand de Blainville, having no recollection of 
my own father, I have made him my ideal. Why,” he added, laugh- 
ing, really feel as though if 1 went to the blue chamber up-stairs 
I should find it transformed into a gallery of my supposititious an- 
cestors.” 

Receiving no answer, he glanced at his wife and started with sur- 
prise. 

‘‘ Why, Helen,” he said, “ how pale you are !” 

It is nothing,” she answered, hastily. did not sleep well.” 

You should have slept as I did,” he rejoined, with a smile. I 
had a very strange dream, that I will tell you after a while, when you 
come up to my study to hear the new chapters of my story.” 

As they rose from the table and passed up-stairs, the waiting-maid 
was entertaining the servants in the kitchen. 

‘‘ I declare,” she said, if she hasn’t put on a pink wrapper, and 
only yesterday in black for her husband. It’s scandalous.” 

Hush,” said the cook, wiping her wet hands on her apron and 
placing them on her hips ; Harvey seen his face at the window this 
morning, and he says it’s her husband hisself, or his ghost. He helped 
put him to bed yesterday, too, and he says he was dead then if ever he 
see a dead man, and what ever the doctor wanted with him in bed he 
couldn’t make out. It’s no wonder the barn was burned last night 
and the storm so awful, when ghosts come up out of empty graves 
that never had no corpse in ’em anyhow.” 

What do you mean?” demanded the astonished maid. 

Didn’t you never hear?” was the reply, in a tone of conscious 
superiority. He was lost at sea, goin’ from San Francisco to the 
Sandwich Islands ; and Mrs. Hanford just put up the tombstone for 
him, and there ain’t no grave there at all. Are you sure he eat his 
breakfast ?” she queried, dropping her voice. 

The maid nodded her head. 

Then you can cross your heart he ain’t no ghost,” was the em- 
phatic response. 


640 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


Meanwhile, Laurence Hanford and his wife had entered the study 
above. 

Laurence dear,’^ said Helen, pushing him gently down in a chair 
and sitting on his knee, I want to hear the novel, of course, but 
first tell me your dream. 

Oh, yes,’^ he said, smiling : I had forgotten about it. And yet 
it was strangely vivid, and there was an illusion of length about it 
such as I have never had before in a dream.’^ 

He paused a moment, and she waited in silence for him to speak. 

The first that I remember about it,^^ he said, was waking up in 
a strange place with no idea of my identity. To prevent the appear- 
ance of insanity, I concealed my ignorance and called myself Jason 
Hildreth. What is the matter, my dear he interrupted himself ; for 
his wife had given a sudden start. 

But she signed for him to go on, and he continued : 

They told me I was in San Francisco, and that I had been sand- 
bagged and robbed on the Pacific Mail wharf. In that city, when I 
had recovered my health, I succeeded at length in getting a position on 
a paper. It is strange, the distinctness with which I recall localities 
there. But I suppose I would find them laughably at variance with 
the truth, if I should ever visit the city. One day I found your pho- 
tograph, and then I believed myself to be Charles de Blainville and 
you Elizabeth Howard. But I could not remember the place where 
you lived, and I sought tidings of you in vain. I saw you once at 
Pacific Grove 

Oh exclaimed Helen, ^^then it was you — ; — ’’ 

She broke off in confusion as he looked at her inquiringly. 

Go on,^^ she said. I will not interrupt you.’^ 

I saw you at Pacific Grove, he went on ; but I found that you 
were registered at the hotel as Mrs. Laurence Hanford. I believed 
then that Elizabeth Howard had been false to Charles de Blainville, 
and I went away and tried to forget.’^ 

Helen tightened the clasp of her arms about his neck and kissed 
him. 

^^How could you believe I had been false to you?’’ she said, with 
tender reproach. 

Why, dear,” he replied, returning her caress, it was only a 
dream. But I could not forget you,” he went on. I could only 
bury your name in my heart. I had one good friend, the doctor who 
attended me in my sickness. Many a smoke I had with him in his 
reading-den. At length I acquired fame through my pen and fortune 
through investments in South American mines. Then I determined 
to go to France and buy back the de Blainville estates. I went, and 
could find no trace of them ; and they called me ‘ le maniaque des 
tots.’ At last I turned to America, and sought at random to find 

you. The first familiar face I saw was that of Simeon Howard ” 

‘^What?” interrupted Helen, with an irrepressible laugh, ‘^poor 
old Mr. Smith, whom you insisted upon giving me as a hard-hearted 
father in your book?” 

‘‘Yes,” he said, smiling; “and when he disclaimed the name I 


JASON HILDRETH WEN TIT V. 


641 


had given him, but told me that he lived in this town, I came on, 
hoping to find trace of you. I remembered the place and the people, 
but no one remembered me. I stood on the street and in the market- 
place, waiting for recognition in vain. I went to the foundry — Wil- 
kinson’s foundry, you know — which I had given in my story to Armand 
de Blainville. They could tell me nothing of my father or of myself. 
I came here, and, standing by the garden, wondered what had become 
of the house of your aunt ; then, looking down the road, I discovered 
it, — your mother’s house, you know. I came here, and the maid would 
not tell me your name, nor let me in. Then I went to the cemetery, 
and saw fresh flowers on your husband’s grave, — your husband, whom 
I imagined to have been a stranger to me, and my rival. I felt utterly 
alone, forsaken and forgotten. Why, Helen,” he interrupted himself, 
what is the matter? You are crying.” 

Your dream is so real,” she said ; but go on.” 

^^Then you came,” he continued, ^^and, standing by the monument 
of my people, looked strangely at me a moment ; and then,” he said, 
tenderly, pressing her closer to his heart, you opened your arms to 
me ; and I remember nothing more.” 

It is very strange,” she said, with an effort suppressing her sobs. 
Her heart ached at the thought of his sufferings ; but she knew that 
she had wcrk to do, and that it would require loving skill to perform 
it successfully. Come with me. I want to show you something.” 

He followed her wonderingly to the window and looked out in 
amazement on the desolate scene, — the charred ruins of the barn, the 
fallen and dismantled trees, the broken fences lying on the crushed 
corn. 

When — how did this happen ?” he exclaimed. 

Last night,” she answered. It was the most terrible storm I 
ever witnessed. Your sleep was deep indeed.” 

I do not see how it was possible ” he began. 

Wait,” she said, silencing him : it was not — normal.” 

What do you mean ?” he demanded, wonderingly. 

At this moment they were interrupted by the sound of the doctor’s 
voice in the hall below. Helen ran down the stairway and intercepted 
him, before her husband realized what was happening. 

^^Oh, Dr. Weyman,” she exclaimed, he remembers who he is, but 
he has entirely forgotten the last eight years. He has been telling me 
about them as a dream of last night.” 

The doctor nodded his head with an expression of satisfaction. 

‘‘Just so; just so,” he said: “it follows out the case cited by 
Camuset. I have a book of Eibot’s with me on the ‘ Diseases of Per- 
sonality,’ in which it is mentioned. I will give it to him to read.” 

By this time Laurence Hanford had descended, and stopped at the 
foot of the stairway aghast. 

“ What on earth is the matter with you ?” he said to the doctor. 
“ It can’t be more than two or three weeks since I saw you, and yet you 
look ten years older.” 

“ Perhaps,” said the doctor, banteringly, “ you are a modern Rip 
Yan Winkle and have been sleeping ten years.” 

VoL. LIX — 41 


642 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


The thought did not occur to him that he had applied that very 
term to himself only the day before. 

I am beginning to think I am/’ was the laughing rejoinder : 
‘‘ even Helen, although the change is an improvement, does not look 
so youthful to me as she should ; but I suppose the alarm caused by 
last night’s storm and the loss of sleep are responsible for that. But 
come in and sit down,” he added, leading the way into the room. 

I cannot stay,” said the doctor, ‘‘ but I have a strange case I 
wanted to tell you about. There is something similar in Ribot, quoted 
from the Annales MMico-psychologiques for January, 1882. Read it, 
and tell me what you think about it.” 

Laurence Hanford took the book and began reading aloud at the 
place the doctor indicated. 

The subject, a youth of seventeen years, V. L., had an attack 
of hystero-epilepsy, and quite lost all recollection of one year of his 
life.” 

He paused a moment and looked up. 

That is very strange,” he said. And you say you have a similar 
case ?” 

Yes,” was the reply, ‘^a dear friend of mine.” 

Laurence Hanford went on reading. The case was in substance as 
follows. The subject was a vagabond, and was finally arrested for 
theft. One day, while working as a farm-hand in a penal colony, he 
seized in his hand a snake, in a bundle of vine-cuttings. He was ex- 
tremely alarmed, and that evening, after his return to the colony, he 
lost consciousness. Repeated attacks of unconsciousness followed, and 
at last his lower limbs became paralyzed. After an interval, during 
which he was cared for and expressed a wish to live a better life than 
formerly, he was taught the trade of a tailor, and worked industriously. 
At the end of two months he suffered an attack of hystero-epilepsy, 
which lasted for fifty hours. This was succeeded by a quiet sleep, on 
awaking from which his former personality returned and he wanted to 
go out to work on the farm where he had seized the snake in his hand. 
He had entirely forgotten the last year of his life, and when given the 
implements of his trade was utterly unable to use them. 

The listeners had watched the reader’s face closely, but he gave 
no evidence of awakened consciousness of his own dual existence. 

It is very strange,” he repeated, calmly, handing the book back 
to the doctor. Tell me about your friend.” 

His voice expressed polite interest and scientific curiosity, nothing 
more. Dr. Weyman and Mrs. Hanford glanced at each other, and 
the former rose to go. 

I have not time to stay longer,” he said ; but I think Helen 
will give you the full particulars of the case, if you care to hear 
them.” 

Laurence glanced at his wife in surprise. She was looking at the 
doctor appealingly. 

It is better so,” the doctor murmured to her aside, as she accom- 
panied him to the door. You will know how to break it to him with 
the least possible shock.” 


JASON HILDRETH IDENTITY. 


643 


XV. 

When he had gone, Helen turned to her husband and slipped her 
arm through his. 

Come to the library with me/^ she said : I want to show you 
something.^^ 

He looked a little surprised, but went with her. 

Excuse me, my dear,^^ he said, but you will have to hurry. I 
think I had better go to see Munson this morning about those new lots 
he was speaking of in the South Addition.’^ 

Munson was the old family lawyer. He had been dead five years. 

Helen paled a little, but gave a guarded reply. 

Do you know,^^ she said, as they entered the room, to whom the 
doctor referred 

Why, no,^’ he replied : how should I ? And how do you happen 
to know about it?’^ 

Because,^’ was the slow response, I saw the quiet sleep that pre- 
ceded the awaking to renewed consciousness of the old personality; I 
watched through the night by the sleeper’s side, waiting and yearning 
for the first sign of recognition he might give me.” 

Why, Helen,” said her husband, in surprise, I do not under- 
stand you. When could you have done this ? When were you away 
from home, and in whom are you interested so much ?” 

Do you not know yet?” asked Helen, laying her hand on his arm. 

He shook his head wonderingly. 

They were standing by a shelf of new books, and, drawing from 
it the latest novel of Jason Hildreth, she placed the volume in his hands. 

Jason Hildreth !” he repeated, in bewilderment : the name in 
my dream.” 

He turned the fiy-leaves, and stopped at the dedication in amaze- 
ment : 

^‘To my friend and comrade. Dr. Edgar Richmond, of San Fran- 
cisco.” 

Two bits of torn paper fluttered from between the leaves and fell 
in his hand. On them were written, in German and English, the 
words of Goethe, — 

Soul of man, 

How like the water ! 

Fate of man, 

How like the wind ! 

He stared at the words, then turned again to his wife. 

“What does it mean, Helen?” he asked. “Surely I must be 
dreaming now.” 

“ No, dear,” she said, passing her arm about his neck and leaning 
on his breast, “you are awake now. You are mine, you are mine, 
and I will never let you go.” 

Surprised by her vehemence, he looked down at her and smiled. 

“ But, my dear,” he protested, “ I have not the slightest intention 
of disappearing like a god at daybreak, or of allowing Mephistopheles 


644 


JASON HILDRETH’S IDENTITY. 


himself to carry me oflP. But, really, I wish you would explain what 
this means/^ He held out the open book and the torn papers in his 
hand. 

Do you not know ? Can you not guess she asked, in astonish- 
ment. . 

I have not the faintest idea,’^ he replied. 

But you remember your dream she queried, anxiously, 

Yes,^^ he said, I remember it perfectly.^^ 

Then,’^ she responded, perhaps I can make you understand. It 
means — that your dream — lasted eight years.’^ 

He started back so suddenly that she slipped out of his arms. 

You are mad,^^ he exclaimed. 

she protested, standing before him with tightly clasped 
hands and pouring out her words impetuously. You were going to 
San Francisco to get the local coloring for your novel. I had planned 
to go with you, but mamma was taken sick, and I would not let you 
give up the trip to stay with me. You had reached the point in the 
story where Charles de Blainville goes to California to seek his fortune. 
After you got there, you must have made some sudden change in your 
plans, probably intending to send your hero to the Sandwich Islands; 
for your name was in the list of passengers on board a vessel bound 
for Honolulu, that was lost with all on board. So you must have pur- 
chased your ticket and engaged your berth with the expectation of 
going; but some time before the vessel sailed the accident must have 
happened to you that the doctor explained when you recovered con- 
sciousness. You were sandbagged and robbed on the Pacific Mail 
wharf. When your reason returned, memory did not come back to 
you at once. Your last thought before your accident was probably of 
Charles de Blainville and Elizabeth Howard : so that my photograph, 
when you saw it, suggested to you those personalities instead of the 
true ones. It was easy for you to imagine yourself a Frenchman, 
since the grandmother who raised you was French and you spoke the 
language perfectly. From the time you found the photograph, you 

lived the life you remember as a dream, till you came here 

A great change had come over his face. It had turned pallid and 
drawn, and his eyes had a terrible stare, as though he saw a spectre. In 
one awful moment were concentrated the suffering and the yearning and 
the disappointment of eight long years. The face of the woman before 
him seemed a vision that was worlds away. He cried aloud in agony 
and held out his arms to her. 

Elizabeth ! Helen he moaned. 

The next moment she had crept to his breast. 

It was not long before a new and brilliant star appeared above the 
literary horizon. The critics said that Laurence Hanford had evidently 
been a student of Jason Hildreth and had caught something of his 
style, but that his genius undoubtedly surpassed that of his unfortunate 
predecessor. His strange absence of eight years, during which time 
he had suffered shipwreck and had travelled in many remote parts of 
the world, his friends believing him to be dead, gave an added interest 


JASON HILDRETH'S IDENTITY. 045 

to his personality ; but with friends and interviewers alike he was very 
reticent about this chapter of his history. 

The first shadow that fell across his new-found happiness was cast 
by the death of Miss Vaughn. By the same train that brought the 
announcement of the sad news from her nephew, Laurence Hanford 
received the painting of Miss Vaughn when a child, by the unknown 
young artist, and also a little packet that shortly before her death she 
had requested should be sent to him. It contained a daguerrotype of 
his father, set in a jewelled frame, and a beautiful little gold watch, 
with a long, fine chain. Enclosed with them was a letter, dated several 
days before her death. It closed with these words : 

As you could not leave America without making to me a con- 
fession of what you thought to be your life, so I cannot leave the 
world without telling you of the new tie that, ever since the discovery 
of your true history, has bound me to you. Before I knew your real 
identity, I loved you as a nephew ; but ever since you wrote us the 
wonderiful history of your life, I have loved you as a son ; for had 
God willed otherwise with my life my son would have borne your 
name. The pictures I send to you ; the painting is your father’s work. 
The watch, which your father gave me on my birthday, is for Eliza- 
beth. The betrothal ring alone would he suffer me to return to him ; 
the packet of his letters will be buried with me.” 

As Laurence and Helen bent over the little packet and lifted the 
gifts reverently from the velvet-lined case in which they had lain, a 
faint odor of lavender lingered about them, like the breath of a de- 
parted spirit. 

The story of The Golden Quest” was never completed ; but the 
eldest daughter of the popular novelist, to whom Dr. Edgar Richmond, 
of San Francisco, had playfully betrothed his little son, was named by 
her father Elizabeth Howard. 


THE END. 


646 


SOME BIRD-SOISGS. 


SOME BIRD-SONGS. 

I T is pleasant to idle away an occasional hour during the spring or 
summer, enjoying the fresh, fragrance-laden air and the green- 
sward with its dots or splashes of color, and drinking in the mingled 
chorus of songs and calls and the many other sounds that pervade the 
place. It is pleasant to allow these various agreeable sensations to form 
a harmonious background to dreamy revery. 

But when, instead of permitting them to remain a mere mass, — a 
collective noun, as it were, — one separates each individual from its 
fellows, learns to know the color which each flow^er lends to the scene, 
the note which each bird contributes to the chorus, — then is felt the 
truest, deepest, and most intense enjoyment of the bountiful feast 
which Nature off'ers to the senses. Each flower, each bird, is a friend ; 
and about each are clustered the many pleasant associations that friend- 
ship brings. That clear, ringing melody from the copse is not merely 
a pretty song ; it is the rich voice of our old friend the Carolina wren, 
whose cheery note, accompanied by the pure, cool breeze of early 
morning, has so often brought matin greetings through the open window. 
That beautiful song of two clear, rather plaintive notes is no longer an 
undistinguished part of a general chorus; it is the chickadee^s love- 
song, which has so many times broken the long silence of winter and 
told us of the coming spring, even amidst snow-covered fields and 
icicle- pointed trees. 

The memory is stored with reminiscences of former scenes and sur- 
roundings ; with details of the habits and appearance of the singers ; 
with incidents of their courtship, their rivalries, their house-building, 
their parental cares and anxieties ; with their social travels to other 
lands. And these are all stirred to life, to a greater or less degree, by 
the sound of their voices. 

Then, too, we have our favorites among them, whose songs we love 
to hear, — perliaps from some of the pleasant memories they recall, per- 
haps from some real or fancied attributes which the singers possess. 
Very often we are wont to ascribe to the bird a character in keeping 
with the quality of his voice. The sonorous tones of the cardinal 
grosbeak suggest strength and power ; the quiet, meditative notes of 
the wood-thrush seem to indicate a philosophical, sober-minded nature; 
the rich, tender contralto of the bluebird is suggestive of a peace- 
ful, affectionate disposition ; the plaintive melody of the wood-pewee 
seems to be the sad sigh of a grief- worn soul. Some birds — the song- 
sparrow, the bobolink, and the house-wren, for example — appear to 
be bubbling over with happiness. Others, such as the meadow-lark 
and the field-sparrow, are apparently deeply oppressed by the weight 
of this life’s cares and sorrows; while the poor little screech-owl 
utters a wail that might come from the depths of a most profound de- 
spondency. O-o-o-o-o-o ! that I never had been bo-o-o-orn !” is 
what he seemed to Thoreau to say ; and no words better characterize 
the gloom that pervades his plaint. 


SOME BIRD-SONOS. 


647 


Of course these are merely fancies. As a matter of fact, I liave 
no doubt that even this chief mourner among the birds enjoys his 
midnight forage fully as well as the wren his sunny meal. And the 
avidity and relish with which I have seen the wood-pewee swallow the 
unhappy insect he has just secured quite belie the doleful strain which 
he delivers almost simultaneously with his final gulp. 

Not that the birds do not difier in disposition : I am sure that 
there is as marked a contrast between the domineering, aggressive 
bee-martin and the quiet, modest white-throated sparrow as there was, 
according to Irving, between Dr. Samuel Johnson and Oliver Gold- 
smith ; but it is not safe to interpret their characters by means of the 
quality of their songs. 

However, it seems almost impossible in some cases to dissociate the 
note of a bird from the characteristic that such a tone would indicate 
in a human being. The catbird furnishes an example of this kind. 
It has been the subject of many a protracted assault on the part of 
some irritated boy, due almost wholly to the fancied taunt uttered by 
it as the missiles fall harmlessly about it. A-a-^h it seems to say, 
you didn’t that time, did you ? A-a-^h !” And yet the poor crea- 
ture is simply giving vent to its alarm and distress ; and its unfortunate 
tone is not intended to convey any more insult or defiance than is 
offered by the mild and inoffensive chip of a disturbed field-sparrow. 

A very different idea of the bird may be acquired by listening to 
its song. For, despite a wide-spread belief to the contrary, the catbird 
is a singer, and a very good one. True, its sprightly carol is a slightly 
bizarre affair, with odds and ends of bird-music jumbled confusedly 
into a medley that has no definite beginning or ending; and the feline 
tone from which the bird derives its name will creep in here and there, 
just as some disagreeable family traits in a man will often manifest 
themselves, no matter how agreeable an impression he is trying to pro- 
duce : still, taken as a whole, it is a very creditable performance. 

The gentleman (for it is only the male member of the family who 
is musically gifted) is also quite a clever imitator, though his ambition 
in this line sometimes brings discomfiture. Early one morning, as I 
was wandering through the woods, I happened upon a small clearing, 
where my attention was attracted by a catbird. Perched upon a low 
pine in the middle of the clearing, he was listening to the distant notes 
of a cardinal grosbeak, his head turned to one side, the better to catch 
the strain. When the cardinal would drop his theme the catbird would 
take it up, giving a very fair and recognizable rendition of it. Sud- 
denly from the woods near by came one of the liquid phrases of a 
wood-thrush. The catbird at once turned his attention to the new 
singer, and, after a moment’s pause, during which he seemed to be 
fixing the notes in his memory, reproduced with tolerable effect the 
simple phrase, and then waited, with a self-satisfied and confident air, 
for another. But the wood- thrush, oblivious of his humble imitator, 
followed his first phrase with one containing one of the low chest-notes 
which constitute the principal charm of his singing, and which are 
literally inimitable. The catbird listened most attentively, cocking his 
head first on one side and then on the other, considered the matter 


648 


SOME BIRD-SONGS. 


carefully for a while, his confidence meantime perceptibly oozing out, 
like Bob Acres’s courage, then finally ducked his head ashamedly and 
flew off* into the neighboring pines without uttering a sound. It was 
beyond his reach, and he knew it and was too vain to risk an absolute 
failure. 

In these imitations, clever though they are, allowances have to be 
made. The praise they call forth is similar to that bestowed on some 
infant prodigy whose fond mamma, beaming with maternal pride, puts 
him through his paces before the assembled guests, who, considerate 
of his age, overlook various palpable defects, and declare his perform- 
ance remarkable for one so young. So, too, we feel that the catbird’s 
imitation of another bird’s notes is very good indeed for a catbird. 

But no such saving clause is demanded in commending the skill 
of the catbird’s cousin, the mocking-bird. In him we recognize the 
finished artist. His imitations are almost exact reproductions in every 
particular, and cause the catbird’s efforts to appear by contrast broad 
caricatures. And they are delivered with all the confidence and self- 
reliance of a master. Mounting to the top of a tall tree, he will amuse 
himself by the hour, pouring forth the notes of one bird after another 
with evident enjoyment of his own talent. 

I quote from my note-book a description of one of his matinee 
performances before breakfast (the proper time for a matinee), which I 
attended by creeping under the tent-curtain. I was sitting at the foot of 
a tree on the top of which he was perched, unconscious of my presence. 

He gives an imitation of one of the notes of the guinea-hen, a fine imi- 
tation of the cardinal, an exact reproduction of the note of the phoebe, 
and some of the difficult notes of the yellow-breasted chat. Now I hear 
a young chicken peeping. Now the Carolina wren sings ‘cheerily, 
cheerily, cheerily.’ Now a small bird is shrilling with a fine insect tone. 
A flicker, wood-pewee, and phcebe follow in quick succession. Then a 
tufted titmouse squeals. To display his versatility, he gives a dual 
performance which couples the ‘ Go back !’ of the guinea-fowl with 
the plaint of the wood-pewee. [Two more widely diverse vocal sounds 
it would be hard to select.] With all the performance there is such 
perfect self-reliance and consciousness of superior ability that one feels 
that the singer has but to choose what bird he will imitate next.” 

If the mocking-bird is the finished artist, and the catbird the clever 
performer, the yellow-breasted chat is the buffo of the company. Per- 
haps booby would be a better term to employ in describing him ; for 
his ludicrous antics and grotesque song are perfectly serious, so far as 
he is concerned. He is not conscious that he makes himself ridiculous. 
It is not his intention to amuse. 

Perched upon one of the lateral limbs of a low tree, he will gather 
himself together as though for a supreme effort, bend his back, and 
with a violent gasping movement of his distended throat emit a globular 
note that one would say had been about two sizes too large for him : 



SOME BIRD-SONOS. 


649 


After a pause for recovery from this mighty feat, he is seized with 
another convulsion, and ejects a second note of a different pitch from the 
first : 



The third note bears the same relation to the first two that the 
asteroids bear to the planets : 






EM ^.-1 

^ LJ- U ! 

L—T ^ 


It is one of the others reduced to fragments. In addition to these 
notes he utters a great variety of uncouth sounds. One of these bears 
quite a close resemblance to the well-known cry of the catbird, of which 
I have spoken. But it is more metallic, more vigorous, and less pro- 
longed, and it cov^ers fewer degrees of pitch. These various noises — 
they cannot be designated by a musical term — are interspersed, appar- 
ently at random, with the planetary and asteroidal notes with which 
he has introduced himself. He is a handsome bird, about the size of 
a catbird, though stouter, with an olive back and a rich chrome-yellow 
breast ; but his movements are as clumsy and undignified as his song. 
He is a member of the large family of warblers, though I doubt if 
one of his numerous relatives would be willing publicly to acknowledge 
the relationship. 

Another bird whose vocal performance borders on the grotesque is 
the little white-eyed vireo. Almost as small as a wren, and somewhat 
wren-like in his appearance and movements, he is constantly in evi- 
dence when you approach his neighborhood. Darting about with rest- 
less, unceasing activity, he seems the embodiment of nervous energy. 
And his song is in keeping with his actions. It is brisk, breezy, and 
breathy, with odd cacophonous notes thrown in liberally, often sug- 
gesting the conglomerate combinations by means of which the students 
of many of our colleges advertise to the world at large the particular 
seats of learning which claim their loyalty. 

It is impossible to write the song on the musical staff, for with his 
other eccentricities the white-eyed vireo has a fine disregard for our 
musical intervals and uses his own. One sound, however, that he em- 
ploys a great deal is something like 


— \r- 



cl 


V 

\) 

t) 

' Whee - 0. 


The moment of my first acquaintance with him was an amusing one 
to me. I was passing a little thicket near the railroad station at one 
of Washington’s suburban settlements, when a small bird suddenly 
rose from the undergrowth and hopped briskly up to a low limb of a 


650 


SOME BIRDSONGS. 


tree, with a loud Whee-o as though to say, By Jove ! ‘ that was a 
breather/’ I soon identified him as the wliite-eyed vireo, and have 
often since enjoyed his comical style of expressing himself. 

A very different kind of bird from those that I have thus far 
mentioned with particularity is the cardinal grosbeak. 

The mocking-bird, not unwilling perhaps to have his talented 
efforts enjoyed by an appreciative audience, will seek the haunts of men 
and use your door-yard for his stage. The catbird, also, seems to feel 
that his powers ought not to be wasted upon inanimate nature, and 
builds his home frequently in close proximity to yours. The uncanny 
songs of the yellow-breasted chat and white-eyed vireo come from low 
thickets of blackberry or brier, perhaps in your fence-corner. 

But the cardinal grosbeak is a bird of the forest. His genius is 
such that knowledge of the presence of an audience could add no zest 
to his performance. To hear his strong, full, remarkably smooth and 
clear whistle you must go to his home in the woods ; he will not come 
to yours, unless, indeed, he incidentally happens along that way. And 
if you would hear him at his best you must not let him become aware 
of your presence. 

But what a delightful treat is offered to those who approach him 
unperceived, when he is in the mood for music! With his powerful 
yet velvety tones, his clear, even portamentos, his utter freedom from 
all tricks or mannerisms, and, above all, the thorough dignity of the 
whole performance, you cannot help the feeling that such singing as 
his is the expression of the real genius, beside which the admirable 
skill of the mocking-bird appears mere clap-trap. It is as gold to 
tinsel ; the real to the artificial ; the natural to the cultivated. 

And how in harmony with his song is his appearance! His erect 
attitude, his brilliant red coat, his gleaming red bill, his handsome 
crest, the graceful ease with which he launches himself upon the wing, 
these arrest your attention and command your respect from the moment 
of first acquaintance. 

I once saw a cardinal fly to an accustomed perch upon the tip of a 
dead and vine-enwrapped pine at a moment when it was occupied by a 
little indigo-bird who also used it habitually as a song-perch. The 
indigo-bird stopped short in his song and flew down to his lowly 
thicket as a pure matter of course; while the cardinal took possession 
of the vacant perch, also as a pure matter of course. The exchange 
was effected without the slightest manifestation of antagonism upon 
either side, as though the cardinal felt, and the indigo- bird acknow- 
ledged, without question, the superior quality of the former. 

The cardinal’s song is far more to my taste than that of the wood- 
thrush, although it has received much less praise. It is so thoroughly 
satisfactory. There are no unpleasing tones, no cracked notes. The 
quality is not so thin; and there seems less premeditation about it. 
The wood-thrush has some very good phrases, such as 





SOME BIRD-SONGS. 


651 


And if he would content himself with simply these, and the beautiful 
low chest-notes which he occasionally sounds, his performance would 
be very enjoyable. But he prefaces each phrase with several clucking 
notes, that give the effect of what the boys call a buck-jump and 
he usually adds to each a closing note that is too high for him, and on 
which his voice invariably breaks. Thus : 



(The notes marked thus * are those on which his voice breaks.) This 
very seriously mars the effect of what would otherwise be an attractive 
song. 

But his voice is too thin and flat. It cannot fail to suffer when 
brought into contrast with the cardinal’s full and round tones. It is 
skimmed milk compared with cream. 

And yet the wood-thrush is an attractive bird. True, when you 
look into his nest, and count the embryonic members of his family, he 
is naturally inclined to manifest some uneasiness and alarm, and will 
move from spot to spot about you, uttering a peculiar sound that 
resembles the swish of a carriage- whip, and sometimes suggests the 
resonant but flat and sibilant note given out by a telegraph wire wdien 
it is struck by a stone. But should you meet him casually, before he 
has assumed the summer’s household cares, he shows a confidence in 
you that is very engaging. 

Once, when I was very slightly acquainted with him, I saw a bird, 
which afterwards proved to be a wood-thrush, sitting in the midst of a 
low tree some thirty feet away. I crept carefully up, advancing by 
inches, and being very particular not to step on a dry twig or in any 
way disturb him. When I had shortened the distance between us to 
about six feet, wondering when he would take to flight, he looked at 
me for a moment, and then, slightly rufiling his feathers, closed his 
eyes and settled himself down for a comfortable nap. 

This trustfulness, his handsome garb, — olive above, and white, 
thickly dotted with large black spots, below, — and his perfect lack of 
self-consciousness, are three strong points in his favor. 

We like a bird or a human being that meets us without fear. And 
so far as any of the smaller birds is concerned, unless the man he 
meets be a very amateurish sportsman, a collector” in the interest of 
science, or a man sent out, as thousands are, to slaughter the birds to 
gratify the whim of the gentler sex to wear birds on their hats, the 
chances are that the confidence displayed will not be misplaced. 
Scientific collecting,” as it is politely called, has this in its favor: it 
is ultimately beneficial to the birds as a class, as well as assisting in 
the education of mankind. The wholesale killing for millinery pur- 
poses has nothing in its favor. Its only extenuation is the thought- 
lessness of woman, or perhaps her ignorance of the extent of suffering, 
and destruction caused by the fashion of using stuffed birds for head- 
ornamentation. 


652 


SOME BIRD-SONOS. 


The chickadee is another bird that seems to feel no fear of man. 
This little fluffy fellow, with a regular foot-ball shock of black hair, 
will pick out the seeds of a sumach just above your head, and, holding 
them between his claws, will crack and eat them as unconcernedly as 
though you were — pardon the suggestion — a fence-post. He is a busy 
little body, active and bright in his movements, singing as he goes his 
quaint chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee.^^ His easily recognizable enunciation 
of these syllables fairly earns him his title. But he has many other 
notes. Early in the spring, long before the other birds have learned 
of its advent, I hear a simple little song from the chickadee : 






It is attractive because it has what John Burroughs calls such a wide 
margin of silence.” 

Then, as the year progresses, no matter what the condition of the 
season, he adds various other songs, notably a beautiful one of two 
very clear notes, each preceded by a high inspirational note : 



or perhaps he will double the last note, thus : 

A A 



9- ~t 

f: -i 



1 1 




The purity and clearness of these notes are remarkable. And their 
early arrival in the spring renders them especially noticeable and enjoy- 
able. In February, with the snow still knee-deep in sheltered places, 
and the woods and fields apparently in the cold embrace of midwinter, 
I have found a flock of chickadees in a little patch of pines singing 
their spring songs as cheerily as though the earth were clothed with 
verdure and the grim frost-king had retired across the northern borders 
definitely and finally. 

Two of the chickadee’s notes are borrowed, one from the phoebe 
and the other from the katydid. But as they are uttered toward the 
close of winter, and are suggestive the one of spring and the other of 

*The metronome numbers given in this article are from memory, and, 
though close enough to give a correct idea of the time, are not exact. 


SOME BIRD-SONOS. 


653 


summer, we can well afford to regard the theft as a mere peccadillo, 
easily forgiven. 

Chickadee has a first-cousin, the tufted titmouse, who is also an 
early singer : indeed, I have heard his loud and vigorous call in Jan- 
uary. Unless you know it, you will be apt to think, when it first 
strikes your ear, that a very patient man and a very refractory dog 
have become separated and tiie man is trying to bring back the truant. 


|•= 200 . 



he will call, ceaselessly, tirelessly, and with little variation. This song 
is easy to imitate : I have brought the bird almost within reach of my 
hand by answering him in his own tongue. 

But his usual note it is impossible to reproduce. It is very similar 
to the dee-dee-dee’^ part of the chickadee’s customary call, only that 
he says day” where his cousin says dee.” It sounds very much 
like the squeal of a young pig. 

Of course, whenever the songs and calls of the birds are rendered 
by words or syllables, the rendition is only approximate. Even the 
whippoorwill, you will find, if you listen to him attentively, does not 
really direct the corporal punishment of William. His song, or at 
least the only one that I have noted, contains five notes, not three. It 
is not, as commonly reported. 




(•=96. 

9- ' - ^ 

FT?, ^ 1 n 

\ A r mV ' 1 1 




A great injustice has been done the gentleman, especially in view 
of the fact that if he really did recommend poor Will’s chastisement 
he would exhibit a most relentless persistence in following up the 
victim of his resentment; for I have heard him repeat his call one 
hundred and sixty times without pause, apparently without even re- 
plenishing his lungs. What a revengeful disposition that would indi- 
cate did he really call for the castigation that is popularly believed to 
be his wish ! 

To show how far the imagination goes in placing words in the 
mouths of various birds, I need only instance the white- throated spar- 
row. This is one of our transient visitors here in the neighborhood 
of Washington, coming down for the winter and returning home in 
the spring to rear his young among the farms of northern New Eng- 
land and Canada. His song consists of two or three long notes fol- 
lowed by several triplets, all delivered in a tremulous and uncertain 
style, as though the singer were very old and feeble : 



This is a fair sample song. 


654 


SOME BIRD-SONGS. 


This bird does not use any words; he simply whistles. And yet 
two entirely dissimilar sets of words are placed in his mouth by his 
human friends. To some he seems to say, “ E-e-e-Pea-body, Pea-body, 
Pea-body and from this he has received the name of the Peabody 
bird.^^ To others he says, All day long, fiddle-in, fiddle-in, fiddle-in.^^ 

It may be to throw these officious meddlers with his affairs off the 
track that the white-throat has formed his curious habit of gradually 
shortening his song as the season wanes. He would clearly be justified 
in adopting such elusive methods. But, whether for this reason or 
some other equally good, he invariably does drop a note or two from 
the end of his song every now and then, in the same way that John 
Brown’s Body” is sometimes sung on picnics or excursions, until at 
length he has only his opening note left. 

And in the spring, when he breaks his winter silence, he reverses 
the process, commencing with a single note and gradually adding to 
this, until finally, just before he says good-by” to us of the South, he 
acquires his full song. 

The meadow-lark is not in any way related to the white-throated 
sparrow, but there is something in the song of one that suggests the 
other. Each seems to reach the goal with fear and trembling. Each 
sings with a quavering voice, and frequently wanders from the key. 
And yet both songs are very pleasant to listen to. 

Through the summer, when the white-throat is gayly sporting at 
Bar Harbor or Lenox, the meadow-lark often pleases me with his pen- 
sive strain as I ramble among the hills and meadows about Wash- 
ington, — that is, when I am sure it is he, and not a neighboring wind- 
mill, that I hear ; for his plaint is very similar to that uttered by a 
windmill that is thirsting for oil. I am not sure but that I could call 
him up to me with an aged wheelbarrow. Yet, such is the power 
of association, the moment I know definitely that it is he and not the 
windmill that is singing, I listen with much enjoyment. 



is one of the songs I have heard from him. Another is 



To understand what these strains sound like, you must imagine a 
clear, plaintive whistle, forced out with apparent effort, thus giving 
marked emphasis to the first note of each phrase, and sliding to the end 
of the phrase with a lack of precision which leaves you in doubt, until 
it is reached, just where the stopping-place will be. 

One morning, inspired perhaps to greater effort by the charming 
weather, a meadow-lark greeted me with this finished production, 


SOME BIRD-SONGS. 


655 



which he had evidently borrowed, with a slight alteration of time, from 
Handel. This bird showed a good classical education. A scholarly 
critic would not hesitate to commend his taste. But the popular vote 
would probably be cast in favor of one of his brethren who manifested 
a predilection for music with a strong rhythmical swing, such as street 
urchins delight in stepping off to in front of a marching band : 



This is as much as he had learned of Sousa^s Washington Post 
March ; but, allowing for his meadow-lark accent, he had acquired 
that much to perfection. 

The meadow-larks are not the only birds who have rendered them- 
selves liable to a charge of plagiarism. Mr. Cheney, in his Wood 
Notes Wild,^^ tells of a chewink that sang a theme based upon the old 
tune to Bock of Ages.^^ And he calls attention to the fact that one 
of the songs of the black- throated green warbler is simply a phrase 
from Larboard Watch, Ahoy with a little alteration ; a fact which, 
if a second witness against the bird be necessary, I can fully corrobo- 
rate. I myself am able to serve as principal informant in several 
cases. I could, if I chose, bring charges against a certain Baltimore 
oriole who was evidently familiar with the old song Not for Joe.’^ 
And I know a Kentucky warbler (though I might have some difficulty 
in identifying him) whose rapid and brilliant carol 



sounds very suspiciously like a passage in Grieg^s Peer Gynt Suite. 

But there may be another side to this question. The Kentucky 
warbler, for instance, supposing him to be placed on trial, might defend 
himself by calling upon us to prove that he was the plagiarist, asserting 
that the phrase in question was an inheritance from a long ancestral 
line reaching back to a period when Grieg and his musical ideas were 
but a potentiality. 

Then, too, wlien we consider that Annie Rooney’^ is based upon the 
Slumber motif from Die Walkure that the melody that accompanies 
the words ^MVhere did you get that hat?’^ is taken bodily from 
ParsifaF^ or Die Meistersinger,^^ in each of which operas it appears 
as a cornet phrase ; that the first two lines in Abt’s When the Swal- 


656 


ON AN ETRUSCAN VASE. 


lows Homeward Fly’’ and Fesca’s An die Entfernte” are twins ; that 
there is a strong family resemblance between the opening bars of the 
^‘Tristan und Isolde” Vorspiel and the molto adagio movement of 
Beethoven’s Sonata, Opus 53 ; that Grieg and Sullivan make common 
use of a phrase two bars in length, the one in his ‘‘ Arabischer Tanz,” 
the other in Princess Ida,” — it would seem that we do not come into 
court with sufficiently clean hands, and perhaps would better enter a 
nolle pros, in the matter, agreeing to regard the resemblance in ques- 
tion as merely a case of unconscious cerebration,” and thus not only 
acquitting the bird of intentional appropriation, but leaving a con- 
venient loop-hole for our own escape in case he should turn the tables 
and place us on the defensive. 

That the birds have no occasion to steal from us in order to sing 
melodiously is abundantly demonstrated by a sprightly bit of melody 
which I heard one morning sung in different keys by some song-spar- 
rows upon the shore of the Potomac : 


•— 112 . - 0 - - 0 - . 0 ~ ^ 0 . 

— —I 1 ^ — ' — r~^ — 


r~T7"rT7-5‘ r r ■ — ^ ^ 

- ^ p— V. j 



n h 



-M 



1 

k ^ ^ 


And I shall never forget the beautiful chromatic changes rung upon 
a simple theme by an unknown singer, probably a thrush, though the 
song was far superior to any thrush-song I have since heard : 



These tones floated into my open window with the incense-bearing 
breath of a spring dawn. Partly, perhaps, from the environment, yet 
largely because of their intrinsic beauty, they have taken a place in my 
memory so high that no other bird-song I ever heard has an equal 
regard. Pure, silvery, serene, they seemed some holy morning hymn 
of praise, uttered in solemn greeting to the mysterious beauty of the 
birth of a perfect day. 

Henry Oldys, 


ON AN ETRUSCAN VASE. 

T he heart, the hope, the peopled town. 

Lie buried deep in Time’s decay ; 

And yet the artist’s soul comes down 
Embalmed in this new shape of clay. 

Harrison S, Morris, 


ON THE fiANTA EE TRAIL. 


657 


ON THE SANTA F^l TRAIL. 

W HILE crossing the Great Plains en route to California, in 1850, 
our party one day stopped to noon^^ on the bank of a small 
stream near the foot-hills of San Mateo Mountains, in the westerly part 
of New Mexico. As the rich grama grass was abundant here, and 
no Indian ‘^sign’’ had been seen for a week previous, our guide, Dave 
Ingram, said that we need not tether the horses and mules, but merely 
hopple them when turned out to graze. 

Our party was a very strong one, consisting of thirty-two well- 
armed men, one woman, the wife of John Dexter, and her twin boys, 
thirteen years of age. Besides a little army of draught-mules, we had 
twelve good saddle-horses, which by this time had become thoroughly 
trained in running buffalo and hunting other game, then very plentiful 
wherever there was a stretch of grassy country. 

Notwithstanding the seeming security of our position on this occa- 
sion, mere force of habit caused us to form the eight wagons into a 
hollow square, as usual, though with no idea that the corral would 
be required for defensive purposes, for the guide assured us that we 
had not yet reached the favorite stamping-ground of the ever-hostile 
Apaches. 

After dinner sbme one proposed that, as the pasturage was so good 
and water so convenient, we should remain in that spot until next 
morning, so as to allow ourselves and the animals a refreshing rest. 
All agreed to the proposition, and all the men except two strolled 
down stream, looking for some pool where we might enjoy the unwonted 
luxury of a bath. For more than a mile, however, w^e clambered over 
rocks and through fringing brushwood without finding a suitable place. 
Then we came to a sharp angle in the river, where, at the foot of a 
steep cliff, the water was dammed up by fallen debris in such a way as 
to form a tolerably deep pond. Here we disported ourselves until tired 
of the fun, when we returned leisurely to camp, having been gone fully 
two hours. 

“ What have you done with the boys, John asked Mrs. Dexter, 
as her husband came in with the rest. 

‘‘ The boys he echoed. Why, what do you mean, Mary? They 
didn’t go with us.” 

Well, I missed them a few minutes after you left, and, of course, 
supposed tliey’d followed you. Where can they be, I wonder?” 

Sho !” Dexter cheerily rejoined ; the young scamps have curled 
up in one of the wagons for a nap, I guess. Hello ! Tom ! Dick ! 
tumble out here and show yourselves.” 

But there was no answer; and an immediate search of all the 
covered wagons revealed the startling fact that neither of the children 
was to be found. 

Don’t be uneasy, ma’am,” said one of the men who had remained 
in camp to indulge, with his comrade, in a mid-day snooze. ^‘The 
VoL. LIX. — 4*2 


658 


ON THE SANTA FE TRAIL. 


little chaps have likely scampered off to the foot-hills. They heard 
Dave telling before dinner that there’s always lots of ripe raspberries 
there this time of year ; and they’ve gone to get some, sure.” 

Oh, husband, do go and bring them in at once. They might get 
lost,” said Mrs. Dexter, now on the point of crying, though not as yet 
seriously alarmed; for the boys were strong, stout, adventurous fellows, 
and, being wonderfully good horsemen for their age, had often, while 
in a safe neighborhood, ridden miles and miles away from the train on 
little side-excursions of their own. But they had never before been in 
the mountains, where it is the easiest thing in the world for even a 
grown man to lose himself. 

More to oblige his wife than because of any real anxiety on his own 
part, Dexter took up his rifle, and, accompanied by the writer, walked 
off to the foot-hills, the nearest point of which was something more 
than a half-mile distant. 

Here, after looking around for a while, we found a patch of well- 
laden raspberry-bushes, the numerous denuded piths on which plainly 
proved that some one had lately made a feast on the missing berries ; 
but the twins were nowhere to be seen, nor could we get an answer to 
our repeated shouts and signal shots. 

My comrade was now alarmed in good earnest. The boys have 
lost themselves, sure enough,” he exclaimed. They may perish in 
this wilderness before we can find them. They left their guns behind, 
and are quite unarmed, so in case of meeting any wild beasts they’ll 
be helpless ; but it’s a mighty good thing no Indians are about.” 

While the man was speaking, I, having had somewhat more expe- 
rience than he, was carefully scanning the ground in our vicinity, and 
now I reluctantly said, John, there are Indians about. Look here, 
and here : the marks on these creeping plants have been made by the 
unshod hoofs of ponies. I fear your children have been surprised and 
quietly carried off by a roving band of Apaches.” 

^^Oh, Heaven forbid!” cried the distracted father. It will kill 
ray poor wife. Are you sure you’re right?” 

‘‘Only too sure,” I sorrowfully replied. “See, the mounted war- 
riors, perhaps twenty of them, have ridden down this hollow. We’ll 
find a regular trail presently.” And, less than one hundred yards 
away, we did find a well-beaten bridle-path, on whose dusty surface 
the recently made imprint of hoofs was unmistakable. 

As we were gravely consulting, the guide, having heard our signal 
shots, came hurrying up with half a dozen men, and to his eyes, skilled 
in sign-reading, one glance at our surroundings told the whole story. 
“ You six,” he promptly ordered, “race back to camp and bring up all 
the saddle-horses and three more men, quickly as possible. We must 
get after those red devils at once. And, say, tell the boys to corral the 
stock right off and stay under cover themselves. Likely as not this is 
a dodge to draw us off while some bigger band of Indians comes down 
to plunder the camp and stampede the mules. I was awfully out in 
my reckoning, for I didn’t think there was a red within twenty miles 
of us.” 

The messengers ran swiftly down the slope ; but the horses, despite 


ON THE SANTA FJ^ TRAIL, 


659 


their hopples, had limped some distance from camp, and more than 
half an hour elapsed before the nine men and twelve animals came to 
where we three stood by the trail. 

When we, too, had mounted, Ingram said, ‘^Now, boys, as two of 
their ponies will be double weighted, we can travel a good deal faster 
than it’s possible for the Indians to do, but there’s no telling how long 
a start they’ve got ; and, as there’s not much more than four hours of 
daylight left, we may not overhaul them till they camp down for the 
night. On this narrow path, they’ll be riding in single file, with the 
prisoners in front, and if we give them time to do it they’ll kill both 
the moment we show ourselves, so it’s quite clear we mustn’t approach 
them from the rear.” 

My God ! what’s to be done, then, Dave ?” despairingly asked 
Dexter. 

Don’t take on that way, John. The boys shall be saved some- 
how. This trail either leads right up into the mountains or sweeps 
around and comes out on tlie plains at Buffalo Gulch, about five miles 
from here by the base-line, but more than twice as far by this way. 
I’ll see directly which direction it takes, and then we’ll know what 
to do.” 

The old mountaineer was both right and wrong in his surmises; 
for we had not gone two hundred yards when the trail split into 
two, one pointing straight north, and the other bending away to 
the east. A moment’s inspection showed that the savages had taken 
the latter route, whereupon the guide joyfully exclaimed, We’ve got 
them, boys ! They’re bound for the gulch, so as to have an easier ride 
to their village, I suppose. We’ll turn back on our tracks, take to the 
open plain, and be nicely hidden at the mouth of the gully before they 
come along. Expecting pursuit only from the rear, they’ll have the 
boys in charge of the first two warriors, and these, and as many more 
as we can, we’ll pick off before they know we’re there. All that are 
able to run after our first volley will scoot off like lightning, and the 
children will be safe.” 

^^But perhaps those fiends have already killed them,” some one 
suggested. 

No danger of that,” rejoined the guide. Even if they were 
fighting-men, the cruel brutes would reserve them to be tortured to 
death after reaching their village; but young boys, like Tom and 
Dick, they’ll likely try to adopt into the tribe.” 

By the time Dave had finished speaking, we had emerged from the 
hills, and then, in full view of our comrades at the corral, we turned 
sharp to the left, swept past an outlying spur, and galloped direct for 
Buffalo Gulch. 

Twenty minutes brought us to its eastern end, and, concealing our 
horses in a grove of cottonwoods, we hid ourselves among the dense 
bushes on either side of the ravine. 

It was most fortunate that we had moved so rapidly, for we had 
not been three minutes under cover when the hostiles came in sight, — 
not, however, in single file, but, the trail being here wide enough for 
the purpose, riding two abreast. Each of the first two pairs had slung 


660 


ON THE SANTA FE TRAIL. 


between their ponies the fast-bound form of one of the boy prisoners, 
neither of whom was struggling at all, nor making any outcry, for 
they were gagged. 

This piteous spectacle drove us nearly wild, but luckily no one 
stirred or uttered a sound. 

So soon as the hideously painted wretches had come fairly between 
our lines, Ingram shouted the single word, ‘‘ Now !'^ 

The blended report of twelve rifles rang out almost before the 
signal had left his lips. At that short distance it was impossible to 
miss ; twelve warriors pitched headlong to the ground, while the eight 
survivors turned and fled for dear life up the pass. 

The next moment, John Dexter had cut the deerskin thongs off his 
boys, removed the gags from their mouths, and was sobbing over them 
like a baby, while the rest of us, Ihn afraid, were not much calmer. 
Although for some minutes quite unable either to stand or speak, the 
manly little fellows were not seriously hurt, their only injuries being 
those caused by the cruelly tight ligatures. 

On recovering their voices, they told us that, after picking berries 
for a while, they had Iain down in the shade of a rock, and, without 
intending it, had fallen fast asleep, awaking only to find themselves in 
the hands of the Indians, who bound and gagged them so quickly that 
no alarm was possible. 

I guess we won’t go berrying alone again in a hurry,” reflectively 
observed Tom. 

No,” said Dick, we don’t want another such ride, — tied up like 
bundles of hay, and ’most choked to death, too !” 

As we had no use for the twelve captured ponies, and could not 
bear to slaughter the innocent creatures, we selected the two best for 
the twins and left the others to be reclaimed by their dead masters’ 
comrades. Then, bringing out and mounting our own horses, we set 
off for camp, which, however, we were not destined to reach without 
further adventures. 

We had jogged along for about four miles, when, from the direc- 
tion of the camp, then one mile distant, but hidden from our view by 
the mountain spur before mentioned, we heard several rifle-shots, min- 
gled with the duller and more full reports of smooth-bore guns. 

Ride, men, ride !” shouted the guide. It was a ruse, after all. 
The corral’s attacked, sure ! You boys” (to Tom and Dick) keep 
well in the rear.” And away we dashed at top speed. 

On rounding the spur and so coming within sight of the corral, 
we saw, circling around it at a respectful distance, at least a hun- 
dred mounted and bow- and lance-armed Apaches; while, in front 
of the main body, eight or ten warriors, carrying old flint-lock buffalo 
guns, had daringly advanced within long rifle-shot of the wagons and 
were wasting ammunition in a futile discharge of their antiquated 
weapons. 

None of the beleaguering host had yet fallen, but just as we, all 
unnoticed, slowed up and peeped from behind the sheltering bluff, two 
of the gun-bearing braves tumbled from their ponies, and the others, 
instantly retreating beyond range, joined the swarm of whooping 


ON THE SANTA FE TRAIL. 


661 


savages, who were riding around and around the corral, trying, we 
presumed, to ascertain the strength of its defenders. The latter, not 
caring to throw away lead at such long range, had not yet fired more 
than a dozen shots, and those at intervals : so the red-skins naturally 
supposed that all but two or three men had gone off in pursuit of the 
kidnapping party, whose raid was planned for that especial purpose, 
as was plainly proved by its attempted return to our camp via Buffalo 
Gulch, obviously for the purpose of taking part in the prearranged 
assault, instead of at once retreating by the north trail. 

On finding how matters stood, Dave Ingram, greatly pleased with 
our besieged comrades’ prudence, laughingly said, The red-skins 
haven’t seen us yet, boys. Let’s stay in the shade of this bluff for a 
while and watch the fun. When the proper time comes we’ll give the 
hell-hounds a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry ; for the fellows in 
camp can shoot no more of them than are fools enough to get within 
rifle-reach.” 

Although still a good half-mile from the corral, we could distinctly 
see every motion made by the Indians between it and ourselves. So 
soon as the scared gun-carriers had retreated to a safe distance from the 
death-dealing rifles, all the scattered warriors drew to a common centre 
and for some minutes seemed to be engaged in earnest consultation, 
the result of which was that the whole force presently formed up into 
a single, crescent-shaped line, and, yelling like demons, rode furiously 
down towards the corral, as if hoping to carry it by storm. 

When within one hundred yards, the old smooth-bores belched 
forth their contents, and a cloud of feathered arrows, rising in grace- 
ful curves, descended harmlessly just short of the covered wagons. 
Convinced by their inaction that the besieged were either very few in 
number or out of ammunition, the wild riders now threw themselves 
low down on their ponies’ sides and darted forward as if sure of 
victory. 

The circus’ll open directly, — admission free,” chuckled Ingram, 
as we anxiously watched the onset. 

And it did ; for when the howling Indians had got within fifty 
yards of their patiently waiting foes, twenty rifles cracked simulta- 
neously, and fourteen ponies in the centre of the line went down, some 
being stopped so suddenly in full career that they whirled over and 
over like rubber balls, but without in any one instance disabling their 
agile riders. These, on being thus summarily dismounted, clung to the 
rude stirrups of their more fortunate companions, and the whole panic- 
stricken crowd wheeled about in precipitate flight.. 

Not scathless, however; for instantly following the volley from 
the muzzle-loading rifles came a continuous discharge of our beset 
comrades’ heavy revolvers, and before the enemy could get out of 
range five of their number fell dead, while many more were doubtless 
wounded. 

Though now frantically flying mountainward, the affrighted savages 
could not see us, ranged close behind the point of the overshadowing 
bluff, until, when they were within two hundred yards, we purposely 
showed ourselves. Then, seeing how few we were, exposed on the 


662 


ON THE SANTA FE TRAIL. 


open plain to their overwhelming numbers, they picked up courage, 
roughly aligned their disordered ranks, and, with resounding war- 
whoops, came straight at us, sure of securing our scalps to atone for 
their own inglorious defeat. The thing looked delightfully easy. 
They were eight to our one, and all would be over long before the 
unmounted men from the corral could reach the battle-ground. 

We sat quietly in our saddles until, at sixty yards’ distance, the 
rain of arrows, shot while the Indians were at full speed, began to 
look dangerous. Then our leader, after cautioning Tom and Dick to 
remain under cover, thundered out, — 

All together, boys ! Pick your men. Fire !” 

Twelve sheets of flame flashed athwart the mountain’s shade ; 
twelve truly aimed bullets sped on their death- mission, cutting, as by 
a lightning stroke, a great gap in the enemy’s line. 

“ Draw revolvers ! Charge !” yelled Ingram, and, like a suddenly 
released whirlwind, our long curbed, half-maddened horses sprang for- 
ward, while we reserved our pistol-fire for closer quarters. But, though 
still outnumbering us seven to one, the dismayed savages did not await 
the shock. While we were yet thirty yards away, they let fly a final 
shower of arrows, broke up into small squads, and, desperately lashing 
their ponies, scurried off towards a belt of timber on the river’s bank ; 
and with one parting volley we let them go. 

Very strangely, the only casualties met with by any of us were 
caused by this last flight of arrows, three of our fellows thereby re- 
ceiving trifling flesh-wounds. 

So soon as the red-skins had disappeared, John Dexter turned 
around, intending to call up his boys, but, to our amazement, both were 
within twenty feet of us. Though entirely unarmed, the irrepressible 
youngsters had charged with us. 

“ Oh, didn’t we lick ’em beautiful !” exclaimed Tom. 

Yes, and mighty quick, too ! It just takes white men to fight,” 
sagely rejoined Dick. 

Why, you little imps,” laughed their father, while his eyes 
sparkled with pride, you might have been killed. What on earth 
made you come after us ?” 

’Cause we wanted to see the fun and make more of you, so as 
to scare the Indians ; but I do wish we’d had our guns,” naively re- 
plied Tom ; for the twins owned, and were quite skilled in using, 
two light rifles, as much alike as themselvas, which they had left in 
camp. 

Only by timely flight had the hostiles avoided being caught between 
two fires, for now our twenty comrades, closely surrounding Mrs. 
Dexter, came hurrying up from the corral. Not a man among them 
had received even a scratch ; and, as the happy mother folded the 
errant boys to her heart with inarticulate cries of joy, we all felt a 
thousand times repaid for the little risk we had run in their rescue. 

Though it was nearly sundown when we regained camp, the guide 
decided that, contrary to our original intention, we would not remain 
longer in that locality. It’s not very pleasant,” he said, to sleep so 
near that carrion. Let’s give the red devils a chance to remove their 


FRENCH PIONEERS IN AMERICA. 003 

dead. That^s part of their religion ; and if we move on a mile or 
two, there woif t be a single body left here by morning.^^ 

Accordingly, we hitched up and drove to a spring, four miles away 
on the Santa F6 trail, where we passed a peaceful night ; nor did we 
see another hostile Indian until after we had entered what is now 
Arizona. 

William Thomson, 


FRENCH PIONEERS IN AMERICA. 

E ven at this distance from the French Revolution, events of that 
great era in human history appeal to us with an interest which a 
regard for the things of the present can neither discredit nor impair. 

When we enter upon the age of Napoleon,’^ says a distinguished 
writer, biography assumes the dignity of history; the virtues and 
vices of individuals become inseparably blended with public measures; 
and in the memoirs of contemporary writers we turn for the secret 
springs of those great events which have determined the fate of na- 
tions.^^ The interest naturally aroused by study of the lives and char- 
acters of factors in scenes of that remarkable period becomes local in 
character when it refers to incidents which converted the comrades of 
Napoleon into American countrymen. The recent republication of 
Pickett^s History of Alabama” revives recollections of the celebrated 
contingent of Frenchmen who in the winter of 1816 sought in the 
desert wilds of Alabama an asylum from the rage of Bourbon persecu- 
tion which followed the downfall of Napoleon. 

There are probably few people of the Quaker City whose personal 
recollections can run the gauntlet of eighty years and extend back to 
the time when the storm-tossed vessel, freighted with fragments of 
Napoleon’s fallen greatness, furled her weary sails in the port of Phila- 
delphia. And yet the remembrance of an occasion so noteworthy in 
American annals surely must be suitably preserved, in historical or 
traditional form, among the richest legacies of that city of history. It 
is not too much to aflSrm that since the landing of the Mayflower few 
emigrant ships have borne to these shores a cargo of humanity which 
represented more that is typical of heroic adventure and historic great- 
ness than the illustrious crew of this unpretentious craft. Among her 
passengers were a number of the most famous men of France, who, 
fallen from the pinnacle of revolutionary grandeur, sought in this land 
of the free a refuge from proscription of the powers upon whose ruins 
these voyagers had builded their own greatness. 

First in mention among them was the celebrated Marshal Grouchy, 
Napoleon’s evil genius at fateful Waterloo. On account of his conduct 
in that great battle, he was personally unpopular with his associates, 
with whom he became involved in a newspaper quarrel soon after his 
arrival. The affair terminated in a rupture between them and the 
consequent return of the marshal to France, where he enjoyed honors 
under the Bourbons. During his sojourn in America he resided in 


664 


FRENCH PIONEERS IN AMERICA. 


Philadelphia, and was not, therefore, included in the famous company 
who afterwards became citizens of Alabama. Grouchy in person was 
a man of middle stature and graceless mien, with nothing about him 
suggestive of the American ideal of a French marshal. 

In character, and in personal and soldierly merit, he was the anti- 
thesis of another celebrity who was a member of the company, — Count 
Lefebvre-Desnouettes, whose name will live in French history insepa- 
rably with those of Napoleon’s greatest generals. He was a cavalry 
officer with the rank of lieutenant-general, and was with Napoleon in 
the disastrous Russian expedition, riding with the emperor in his car- 
riage in the famous retreat over the snows of that country. Handsome 
in person and of graceful carriage, he is described in history as the 
most splendid rider of the age in which he lived.” Next to Ney, he 
was perhaps nearer to the heart of his great commander than any of 
Napoleon’s marshals. When the emperor was forced to abdicate and 
about to depart for Elba, he made a farewell address to his sorrowing 
officers at Fontainebleau, concluding with this affectionate testimonial to 
his favorite general : ‘‘ I cannot take leave of each of you in person, 
but will embrace General Desnouettes in behalf of you all.” Suiting 
his action to these tender words, he embraced his devoted officer with 
all the fervor of a sincere affection. Napoleon influenced his cousin, a 
sister of the celebrated banker, Lafitte, to espouse him, and while in 
America that lady made an attempt to join him in exile, but, being 
shipwrecked on the coast of England, she was forced to return to 
France. Subsequently she negotiated with the French government 
for the marshal’s return, and through the influence of her family suc- 
ceeded in obtaining permission for him to reside in Belgium. This 
induced General Desnouettes in 1823 to leave Alabama in the ship 
Albion, which was wrecked on the coast of Ireland at old Kinsale 
in view of a horrified throng on the cliffs, who witnessed the great 
soldier sink to his death in a watery grave. Tragic fate for a career 
so glorious ! 

A comrade of Desnouettes in his American venture was Count 
Bertrand Clausel, another distinguished officer of the Revolution. He 
commanded at Bordeaux during the Hundred Days, and won renown 
as the captor of the Duchess of Angoul^me, whom he released from 
custody for some unknown cause. General Clausel did not occupy 
his grant, but became a citizen of Mobile, where he was a truck gar- 
dener, driving his vegetable-cart to market himself. He subsequently 
returned to France and was made governor and marshal of Algeria by 
Louis Philippe. 

Nicholas Raoul, a remarkable personage, was numbered among the 
colonists. He had been a colonel under Napoleon, and accompanied 
him in his banishment to Elba. When his imperial master left that 
island, Raoul commanded his advance guard of two hundred grena- 
diers upon the march from Cannes to Paris. After years of hardships 
and misfortune in Alabama, in which he became reduced to the station 
of a ferryman at a small creek near the French grant, he returned to 
France and procured an honorable commission in the French army, 
where he added new lustre to his fame as a soldier. Another distin- 


FRENCH PIONEERS IN AMERICA. 


665 


guished refugee was J. J. Cluis, who had been secretary to the Duke 
of Kovigo when head of the police department of Paris. Probably 
his greatest claim to distinction consists in his having been at one time 
custodian of Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, while that potentate was 
imprisoned by Napoleon near the Spanish frontier. He died in Mobile 
about 1845. 

Of men whose reputations were of the civic and literary order, and 
who were prominent members of the colony, Simon Chaudron, M. 
Lackanal, and M. Peniers are mentioned. M. Chaudron lived many 
years in Philadelphia, where his house was a centre of elegance and 
wit. He was a poet of considerable prominence, and a scholar of pro- 
nounced attainments. His eulogy before the Grand Lodge of Phila- 
delphia upon the life and character of Washington attracted marked 
attention both in Europe and in America. He died in Alabama, at 
the advanced age of eighty years, in 1846, leaving behind him valuable 
works, which were published in France. Lackanal was a savant and 
member of the Academy, and had been at the head of the department 
of public education under the emperor. He was one of the members 
of the National Assembly who voted for the death of Louis XVI. 
M. Peniers was also a republican member of that body and voted for 
that sanguinary measure. To extend the list further would reveal 
many names linked with deeds that adorn the annals of the French 
Revolution. 

Inured to the profession of arms as the great majority of these 
refugees had been, and having known no occupation in bloody France 
but the trade of war, the aimless feelings of the unhappy exiles upon 
their introduction into the peaceful but busy bustling scenes of Yankee- 
land must have given a painful emphasis to the novelty of their expe- 
rience. Their fate, however, not being a voluntary choice, but rather 
the result of enforced obedience to an iron-clad ordinance of Louis 
XVIII., they addressed themselves to the task of conforming to sur- 
roundings for which past undertakings and experience afforded no 
parallel. From comradeship with Napoleon in schemes of conquest 
and glory, they had been doomed to the drudgery of a plain American 
business pursuit, and they set themselves about it with an enthusiasm 
peculiar to their nationality. Soon after their arrival in Philadelphia 
the refugees despatched their representative, Nicholas S. Parmentier, to 
Washington to obtain from Congress a tract of land in the wild 
domain of the West, upon which they had resolved to establish a 
colony. 

Whether we are to credit the ready success of M. ParmentiePs 
mission to his skill as a lobbyist, or ascribe it to the obliging mood of 
the Washington statesmen, the fact is very much in evidence that that 
diplomatic gentleman was enabled to execute his commission with a 
promptitude which presents a refreshing contrast to the policy of delay 
against which he would have had to contend with a similar under- 
taking before a modern Congress. In the winter of 1817 M. Par- 
mentier went to Washington to memorialize Congress in behalf of his 
associates; on the 4th of March following that body authorized the 
sale of four townships to the refugees at two dollars per acre on credit 


666 


FREIS'CU FlOyEERS IN AMERICA. 


for fourteen years, on condition that they cultivate the vine and the 
olive. We recognize in these generous terms and the single qualifica- 
tion to which they are limited a suggestive instance of that liberal 
patronage of the useful arts which has ever distinguished our Federal 
policy and made the cause of American agriculture a distinct and im- 
portant branch of administrative treatment. 

Upon securing their grant from Congress, the French emigrants, 
after much correspondence relative to a suitable soil and climate for a 
location, finally selected as a site for their colony a strip of wilderness 
in the then Territory of Alabama, at the confluence of the Warrior and 
Tornbigbee rivers. Their choice in favor of this wild locality was in- 
fluenced, if not determined, by Dr. Brown, of Kentucky, a gentleman 
who had travelled extensively in France and felt great interest in the 
fate of the unhappy representatives of that country. The company, 
composed of three hundred and forty allottees, was organized in Phila- 
delphia, and the land divided among them. Associated with them as 
assistants were Prosper Baltard, A. Mocquart, and J. Le Fran 9 ois. 
George N. Stewart, a young Philadelphian, who afterwards became 
a distinguished lawyer in Alabama, was secretary to the colony. A 
schooner, bearing the historic name of McDonough, was chartered, and 
the commissioners, with their large and distinguished company, set sail 
from Philadelphia in the month of April, 1817. The author upon 
whose account I have relied for the historical facts of this narrative 
furnishes an impressive and pathetic description of the arrival of the 
French wanderers at the nearest port to their wilderness home : 

Late one evening in the month of May, the vessel bearing the 
romantic voyagers was seen approaching Mobile Point in the midst 
of a heavy gale. Governed by an obsolete chart, the captain was fast 
guiding her into danger. Lieutenant Beal, commanding at Fort Bow- 
yer, perceiving her perilous situation, fired an alarm-gun. Night 
coming on and overshadowing both sea and land in darkness, he caused 
the lights to be raised along the shore as guides to the distressed vessel. 
The wind continuing to increase, she was thrown among the breakers 
and immediately struck. Signals of distress being made, the noble 
lieutenant threw himself into a boat with five resolute men and Cap- 
tain Bourke, formerly an officer. Mounting wave after wave, they 
reached the wreck about one o’clock in the morning. The wind had 
somewhat abated, and Beal crowded the women and children into his 
boat and conducted them safely to shore. The larger number of the 
colonists remained on board the schooner, which was ultimately saved 
by being washed into deeper water. Bestowing upon the refugees 
every attention while they remained at the Point, Beal accomj)anied 
them to Mobile and partook of a public dinner which they gave him in 
token of their gratitude.” 

From Mobile they were transported in government barges to St. 
Stephens on the Tornbigbee River, a town of importance at that time 
as the capital of the Alabama Territory, but with a greater claim for 
national interest as the scene of the capture of Aaron Burr. Modern 
residents of the ancient village manifest becoming pride in pointing 
out to the curious traveller the exact spot hallowed by this memorable 


FRENCH PIONEERS IN AMERICA. 


667 


incident in American history. St. Stephens presented the only evi- 
dence of civilization which contrasted with the savage surroundings 
that marked the wilderness abode of Napoleon’s countrymen. With 
this historic town as an objective point, the colonists explored the 
dreary wilds that were to furnish them a home from the persecution 
which had forced them from the refinements and elegancies of France. 
The transition from the luxuries and gayeties of Parisian civilization 
to the rude existence of the American savage was one replete with the 
irony of fate, and doubtless inclined the light-hearted Frenchmen to 
lessons in philosophy which the constitutional gayety of their nation 
disqualified them from seriously regarding. 

The principal portion of the French grant lay in what is now known 
as Marengo County, a fertile portion of the famous Alabama Black Belt. 
The name was proposed in honor of the great battle fought under the 
French Republic. Upon the arrival of the refugees the meridian line 
was established and the grant divided into townships and sections. A 
town was established, which, at the request of Count Real, of Philadel- 
phia, was called Demopolis, — ^‘the city of the people.” The work of 
subduing the Western wilds and converting them into habitable condi- 
tions was clearly an undertaking for which this unique company was 
but indifferently fitted. Symptoms of the absolute ruin in which their 
unhappy enterprise was ultimately engulfed began to appear from the 
outset of the undertaking. Limited in provisions, unprovided with 
teams and wagons, and practically without any of the requisite means 
for blazing a way for civilized existence through the obstructions which 
encountered them on every hand, this remarkable venture of the French 
in the ro/e of pioneers suggests the refinement of absurdity. 

The troubles resulting from a lack of proper equipment for their 
enterprise were supplemented and intensified by unfortunate conditions 
not of their own making. Great confusion arose in the selection of 
lots and tracts of lands. The allotments made at Philadelphia and 
ratified by Mr. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, were found to be 
different from those made by the settlers themselves, who were forced 
to abandon their improvements and retire farther into the forest. The 
complications induced General Desnouettes, who had opened a farm on 
his Tombigbee allotment, to proceed to Philadelphia to adjust the con- 
flicting interests, and, if possible, to rectify the troubles which pre- 
vailed in the infant colony. The general succeeded in securing his own 
improvements, but the claims of his dispossessed compatriots were dis- 
regarded. The settlers as a consequence were forced to retire upon new 
and unimproved assignments. Thus ejected from their original estates, 
they abandoned Demopolis, the capital of the colony, and founded a 
new city, erecting cabins; but the evil fate which followed in their 
early wake hounded them here. It was discovered that the site of the 
fledgling city was not embraced in the Philadelphia drawing, and upon 
this unhappy discovery, like their red-skin companions of the forest, 
they were doomed to move on. The want of wagons and teams and 
the great scarcity of water which prevailed in the new territory induced 
them to dwell on small allotments, while their more valuable tracts 
were left unoccupied. 


668 


FRENCH PIONEERS IN AMERICA. 


Through the enterprise of Desnouettes, who appears to have been 
the directing spirit of the undertaking, a lot of German redemptioners 
were imported to cultivate these valuable lands. They were a sorry, 
worthless set, and proved to be a burden and expense rather than 
meritorious laborers. The long train of evils which had extended with 
distressing uniformity through every stage of the adventure was not to 
end here. The diversity of the obstacles presented would seem to sug- 
gest that all the causes of evil were in league to defeat the purposes of 
Napoleon’s banished followers. The curse of destiny which rested 
upon their fallen idol seemed to follow like an avenging spirit in the 
wilderness wake, dispensing everywhere with pitiless hand the un- 
happy fruits of ruin. A new form of disaster was presented in the 
invasion of a horde of unprincipled American squatters, who, without 
the shadow of title, occupied the lands of the French, meeting every 
attempt at ejectment with insulting and aggressive defiance. Several 
lawsuits arose between the colonists and these petty usurpers, and, 
although the Alabama Supreme Court decided in favor of the grantees, 
it is stated that the latter became worn out with the controversies 
provoked and allowed the intruders in many cases to retain possession 
for a paltry consideration. The attempted cultivation of the grape and 
olive resulted in ruinous failure, — not, however, from indifference of 
the colonists to comply faithfully with this sole condition of their 
grant. Mr. Pickett in his account furnishes this explanation of the 
poor results which attended the efforts of the French in behalf of these 
valuable products : 

Importations of plants were often made from Bordeaux, but the 
newness of the land and the ignorance of the colony in regard to their 
cultivation were among the reasons why the experiment failed. The 
importations frequently arrived out of season, when the vines withered 
away and the olive seeds became defective. At length, with difficulty, 
grapes were grown, but they failed to produce even tolerable wine, be- 
cause the fruit ripened in the heat of summer. Before the vinous fer- 
mentation was completed the acetic acid commenced. In 1821 the 
French planted three hundred and eighty-three olive-trees upon the 
grant, and a large number in 1824. Every winter the frost killed 
them down to the ground, and new shoots putting up were again killed 
by the succeeding winter.” 

With a failure of the vine and olive industry the last reasonable 
hope of a successful establishment of the colony was blasted. It had 
been the prime and overshadowing object of all the energetic but mis- 
directed efforts of the pioneers from the time of their embarkation at 
Philadelphia to the hour of their formal dissolution on the historic 
banks of the Tombigbee, and in its collapse was extinguished the last 
flickering hope for an enterprise which was doomed from the fateful 
hour of its beginning. 

It is doubtful if history records an undertaking of similar nature 
and of so distinguished a character which furnishes from start to finish 
more to induce abandonment and surrender; and yet at few stages of 
its progress did the struggling French colonists appear to lose heart 
or yield to adversity. The maxim of the Chinese philosopher which 


FRENCH PIONEERS IN AMERICA. 


669 


defines man’s highest glory was perhaps never tested with more striking 
fidelity, nor its force as a guiding truth more powerfully expressed, 
than in the experience of Desnouettes and his followers in the Alabama 
wilderness. When we consider that these men were numbered among 
the heroic factors which constituted the splendid armies of Napoleon, 
we cease to wonder at the causes which enabled that mighty conqueror 
to raise the glory of the republican armies on the plains of Italy, sur- 
vive the burning sands of Egypt, and chain victory to the imperial 
standards at Jena, Fried land, and Austerlitz. 

But the fortitude of the revolutionary soldier could not prevail 
against the intangible foe of evil fate. Worn out at length in battling 
against the constantly recurring odds of misfortune, and exhausted in 
resources to postpone longer the. inevitable, these brave Frenchmen 
yielded to the stern command of destiny. As a partial offset to the 
sacrifices endured, they received fair considerations for their possessions 
from enterprising Americans, who, attracted by favorable reports of the 
section, had emigrated from all directions in quest of the newly dis- 
covered Eldorado. Many of the colonists returned to France, others 
scattered throughout the Union, while a number remained in Alabama, 
and are represented to-day in descendants many of whom are among 
the most prominent and influential families of that State. The his- 
torian to whom I have repeatedly referred concludes his account of 
the colony in terms which induce us to forego the mournful details 
which speak of hardships and misfortunes, in admiration of the firm 
resolution and calm philosophy with which the French accepted their 
lot : 

Immured in the depths of the Tombigby forest, where for several 
years want pressed tiiem on all sides ; cut off from their friends in 
France; surrounded by the Choctaws on one side and the unprincipled 
land squatters and thieves on the other; assailed by the venoms of 
insects and prostrating fevers, nevertheless their native gayety pre- 
vailed. Being in the habit of much social intercourse, their evenings 
were spent in music, conversation, and dancing. The larger portion 
\vere well educated, while all had seen much of the world, and such 
materials were ample to afford an elevated society. Sometimes their 
distant friends would send them rich wines and other luxuries : on 
such occasions parties were given, and the foreign delicacies brought 
back many interesting associations. Well-cultivated gardens and the 
abundance of wild game rendered the common living of the French 
quite respectable. The female circle was highly interesting. They 
had brought with them their books, guitars, silks, parasols, and rib- 
bons, and the village in which most of them dwelt resembled at night 
a miniature French town. And then further in the forest others lived, 
the imprint of whose beautiful Parisian shoes on the wild prairie occa- 
sionally arrested the eye of the solitary traveller. And then again, 
when the old imperial heroes talked of their emperor, their hearts 
warmed with sympathy, their eyes kindled with enthusiasm, and tears 
stole down their furrowed cheeks.” 


Alva Fitzpatrick. 


670 


EARNING A LIVING IN CHINA. 


EARNING A LIVING IN CHINA, 

S TRICTLY speaking, some earn more than they ever receive ; while 
others are blessed with a living^’ which they never earn. Then, 
too, the word living conveys as many shades of meaning as there are 
classes and conditions of men ; but to the average Chinese laborer the 
meaning is daily supplies for daily necessities. The Chinese are a people 
of marvellous economy. They will support a family, furnishing all 
that the household enjoys of food, shelter, and clothing, from a small 
garden which they call a farm, but which would not more than furnish 
an American family with early vegetables. 

Even in the cities, the laboring people receive the merest pittance 
for their work. How they manage to live, and even to look sleek and 
fat, upon the meagre fare which such wages can buy, is a marvel to 
Europeans, and even more so to Americans. The following is a partial 
list of wages received in Canton, where the people are better paid than 
in many parts of China. A daily portion of rice is sometimes given 
in addition to the money. 


Wages for skilled labor. 


Shoemaker 
Blacksmith 
Fine ivory-carver 
Tailor 

Fine embroiderer 

Designer . 

Silversmith 

Painter 

Cook 


Per Month. 

$4.00 

5.00 

12.00 

5.00 

4.00 

6.00 
8.00 
4.50 
6.00 


Many men, many minds,^^ and many methods of making money. 
China, without doubt, has the many men ; and, occupying as she does 
a midway position between barbaric and advanced nations, she em- 
braces the many methods which are employed by both kinds of people 
in earning life\s necessities. 

The Chinese are as superstitious as any race in Asia or even Africa : 
therefore they must support a great army of people to minister to these 
superstitions. In addition to their temples and pagodas, their monas- 
teries and priests, — all of them probably receiving more, in proportion 
to the whole amount of money handled, than do the churches and min- 
isters of Christ in Europe or the United States, — the people of China 
support idol-makers, geomancers, fortune-tellers, physiognomists, sooth- 
sayers, astrologers, and interpreters of dreams, an army of each. You 
find these people in all parts of China. Most of them look as though 
it were no difficult matter to gain a living by their own wit, or the 
lack of wit in others. The position which they occupy is above the 
artisan, but below the scholar or the priest. 

The idol-makers are frequently skilled workmen from the various 


EARNING A LIVING IN CHINA. 


671 


trades. Some are fine ivory-carvers, others silversmiths, blacksmiths, 
and wood-carvers. The skill of the wood-carver is shown in the large, 
grotesque figures upon the doors and near the entrances of temples. 
Instead of copying Nature, they all burlesque her handiwork. The 
fish idol, which is sometimes suspended from the eaves of temples, is 
an example of this grotesque style of work. The workman, who toils 
for days or even weeks to make one, does not attempt to picture any 
particular fish, but tries to carve out something which will frighten 
any timid worshipper. He is not satisfied when he gives the wooden 
fish a full set of shark^s teeth ; he must add the large canine teeth 
of the savage quadruped. If the carver is working for merit, he may 
imagine any amount charged to his account; but the actual wages 
which he receives will not bring him riches, though he may be better 
paid than one who carves tables and cabinets. 

Geomancers are those who search out lucky places for the burial 
of the dead. There are more than the usual number of tricks to this 
trade, which only the initiated understand. These diviners carry a 
compass, with which to locate relatively the positions of neighboring 
streams and hills. After various mysterious calculations, they select a 
spot and proceed to examine the soil with great care. Stony soil is 
condemned at once; red earth is pronounced good; while it is still 
better if a stream of water flows in that direction, or if the chosen 
location commands a broad view. If the client is dissatisfied with the 
diviner’s first choice, he must fee him handsomely before he will seek 
a more desirable spot. These tricksters earn a better living than the 
average workmen, who support a large number of them in every 
Chinese province. 

The clever interpreter of dreams has a profitable position in the 
Orient, where the people believe that each dream has a hidden meaning. 
If a vision is vivid, or deeply impressed upon the mind, the dreamer 
calls immediately upon an interpreter, who is not only able — for a 
fee — to reveal the meaning, but will sell a mystic scroll warranted to 
combat victoriously any threatening ill-luck. 

Another thing growing out of Chinese superstition which is a 
source of profit to many people is the spirit money. Festivals, high 
days and holidays, birthdays and times of mourning, all call for sup- 
plies of this imitation cash. Spirit money is burned whenever offer- 
ings are made to gods or ancestors ; for it is supposed to furnish dis- 
embodied beings with the legal tender” of spirit-land. Each night, 
householders, laborers, and tradesmen pay this tribute to the powers 
of the air. Although by no means monopolizing the trade, the single 
city of Shao-hing employs one hundred thousand men, women, and 
children to manufacture cash for ghosts. 

The peculiar superstitions of China embarrass workmen in the 
pursuit of their ordinary trades. For example, the carpenters and 
builders, though receiving better wages than many other workmen, 
must spend much of their earnings in heavy toll for the privilege of 
passing along the Chinese turnpike of superstition. In the first place, 
they must exercise great care, when building a house, to select a ridge- 
beam having neither cracks nor knots. One small hole is made therein 


672 


EARNING A LIVING IN CHINA. 


and filled with gold-leaf ; then the beam is painted red. All this is 
supposed to bring the future inhabitants riches and honor. A picture 
of Chong-Wong-Yae, the special god of carpenters, is usually hung 
from the rafters of a new house or one undergoing repairs. These 
portraits are rented, for a small sum, from the priests at the temple 
of Chong- Wong- Yae, whither carpenters and builders resort to make 
their offerings in order to ward off possible accidents. 

If a house is to be repaired, wonderful forethought is necessary. 
The evil spirits which are supposed to occupy each dwelling that 
mortals have inhabited cause the carpenter no end of trouble and no 
trifling expense. First an astrologer must be consulted with regard 
to the most lucky day for beginning the work ; then a square sus- 
pended from the ridge-beam is a notification to the spirits of dark- 
ness that their dwelling-place is to be disturbed, wherefore the square 
thing for them to do is to move out quietly and peacefully. Next 
the carpenters make offerings to these unseen residents. These gifts 
seem to say, If you please, spirits of darkness, accept this bribe and 
speedily take your flight.^^ Next the neighbors must be warned that 
these evil influences are about to be turned loose, perhaps to seek shelter 
under a neighboring roof. Every house on that street receives a notice 
that upon a certain day and hour repairs are to begin on the dwelling 
of Ah Sin. Each household can then pay the imps not to enter its 
door-way, but to go to the next neighbor. 

Even the farmer cannot begin his work in the spring until after the 
national festivals are celebrated in honor of the special gods who are 
supposed to make it their particular business to look after the welfare 
of those who till the soil. In a land where more than one hundred 
million people are supported by agriculture, where many farms have 
been in cultivation for three or even four millenniums, we naturally 
expect to find skill in that line of work. In this we are not disap- 
pointed, for Chinese farming is scientific handwork. 

Almost every village has its Board of Agriculture, consisting of 
some of the oldest farmers, who have been honored by the eighth 
degree of rank.^^ These men have authority to reprimand, or even to 
flog, a lazy farmer whose fields show signs of neglect. They frequently 
have charge of many acres of government land, which is portioned 
out in small tracts to industrious Chinamen, who for a term of years 
may have free use of the land as a reward for clearing off the rank 
growth. Before Confucius lived, his countrymen had learned that if 
the earth yields abundantly she must likewise receive ; if she feeds 
others she must herself be fed. Therefore not a particle of fertilizing 
matter is allowed to waste. Night-soil and garbage are mixed with 
ashes and stable manure, then the compost is well ploughed under. 
In some districts fuel is so scarce that the people use dried cakes of 
stable-sweepings instead of coal ; but the ashes therefrom are carefully 
swept up, to be added to the waste vegetable and animal matter, all 
which will be used to enrich the soil. 

The Celestials also learned in the far-away past a lesson which 
many American farmers have not yet mastered, — that there must be 
rotation of crops, as well as occasional periods of rest for the land. 


EARNING A LIVING IN CHINA. 


673 


A rice crop planted in February is gathered in June. In July a second 
rice crop is sown, which is harvested in November. Then, in some dis- 
tricts, wheat or barley is sown broadcast ; while in other parts of the 
empire cha-yow, or tea-oil,^^ is planted. This plant is cultivated for 
its seeds, from which is extracted a pleasant oil, the favorite hair- 
dressing of the Chinese ladies. After the oil is extracted, the ground 
seeds are used as a substitute for soap by thousands of this most eco- 
nomical people. 

Nearly all the work on a small farm is done by the Chinese them- 
selves. In some provinces bullocks and water buffaloes are used for 
the heavier labor; but man is the universal beast of burden. With 
wonderful patience, as it seems to Americans, the Chinese bend their 
backs to any burden. The half-grown boy brings to your door his 
basket of charcoal, partly concealed under his outer garment ; the full- 
grown man will carry more than his own weight over a long and toil- 
some way. He will even carry you upon his back up steep and rocky 
mountain paths, where your own feet would soon grow weary of climb- 
ing. These burden-bearers receive a mere pittance for all their hard 
work. 

Closely related to the farmers is the class of men who, with a taste 
for the quaint and artistic, earn a living as landscape-gardeners. They 
delight in producing miniature copies of nature. Narrow walks wind 
in and out through dwarfed and grotesque shrubbery. Tiny ponds are 
spanned by dainty bridges. The scene suggests a play-ground for the 
wee ones, either little children or fairies. To produce the dwarf trees, 
the gardeners either confine the roots within a small iron-bound cask, 
or the more rapid method is to select a vigorous branch upon the de- 
sired tree and bind around it a band of leaf-mould. This is kept 
moist until roots creep into the mould; then the branch is severed 
from the tree. Soon flowers and fruit develop, for their buds were 
formed by the parent tree. 

The tea-trade, which is closely related to agricultural pursuits, em- 
ploys many thousands of people. From the time of planting, through 
the cultivation, gathering of the leaves, rolling, coloring, mixing, and 
packing, until the tea is sold and shipped, Chinese hands must do the 
work. These laborers receive from two dollars to ten dollars per 
month, according to their special line of work. 

Two other products of the soil are sources of profit to many. 
These are reeds and bamboo. 

Upon the flats, along the rivers, grow acres of grass-like reeds, 
which are used in weaving the Chinese matting. In Canton alone 
this industry gives employment to thousands of men, women, and 
children ; for in that city, every year, more than five hundred thousand 
yards are woven upon hand-looms. 

Bamboo is even more valuable. The land-owner who can claim as 
his own several clumps of this pale-green timber-grass is a fortunate 
combination of lumberman and farmer, accounted wealthy by his 
countrymen. When once started, the bamboo grows rapidly and re- 
quires little care. The cane is cut and carried to those cities where 
bamboo work is made a specialty. Some of the poles are exported, 
VoL. LIX.— 43 


674 


EARNING A LIVING IN CHINA. 


but far the greater number are used in the Orient in the manufacture 
of a wonderful variety of objects, from hats to houses. 

Our modern philosophers are forever discussing the influence of 
environment upon character. In China a man’s birthplace certainly 
decides, to a large degree, his occupation. Certain provinces or cities 
monopolize a particular kind of work : thus it is with the artificial flowers 
in Amoy. These dainty blossoms are made from the pith of a plant 
which is also used in the manufacture of the well-known rice-paper. 
Men, women, and children, with deft fingers, fashion this frail substance 
into beautiful life-like blossoms. Nearly every shop in the city has this 
pretty handiwork, heaped on trays, for sale. Those who sit hour after 
hour making these fragile flowers earn from ten to twenty cents per day. 

The silk industry likewise is confined to special provinces, and 
naturally to those districts where food for the little spinners grows 
most abundantly. In many villages each household does every part 
of the work, from caring for the eggs, feeding the worms, unwinding 
the cocoons, and spinning the raw silk, up to weaving beautiful patterns 
upon their rude looms. In other places the people work for the silk- 
merchants. When the work is required, they reel and dress the silk, 
devoting the remaining days to work upon their own little farms. 
With all this they earn small wages; but they live as well as their 
ancestors, and seem content. 

The first person in all the world who raised silkworms for the 
purpose of robbing the cocoon of its soft covering was the Empress 
Si-Lung-Chee, who reigned in China 2700 b.c. She is now worshipped 
as goddess of the silkworm. Once each year a national festival is held 
in her honor. The reigning empress and her maidens resort to the 
temples of Si-Lung-Chee, and pay her, in flowers and spirit money, an 
instalment upon the debt which China owes to her; for did she not 
make the important discovery whereby the poor may earn life’s neces- 
sities and the rich may rustle in shining garments ? 

Perhaps more people wear silk in China than in any other country ; 
for plain raw silk is almost as inexpensive as cotton. Even for winter 
garments this material is made to serve, with layers of wadding placed 
between the outside and the lining. As their garments do not go out 
of style, it is not necessary to buy new ones until the old are well worn. 
This is a great item of saving for every one but the tailors ; but if the 
people followed the example of the tailors themselves, there would be 
still less for that craft to do. Like the feet of ‘‘ shoemakers’ children,” 
the Chinese tailors, while at their work, are as nearly bare as possible. 
When well fattened, their uncovered bodies suggest the animals which 
Americans enclose in a sty. The more like a well-fed porker a China- 
man becomes, the prouder is he of his looks ; for a corpulent man is 
regarded by his almond-eyed brethren as a high type of humanity. 

In the tailors’ work-room, which is frequently open on all sides, 
the passer-by may see from five to ten men squatting around a low, 
matting-covered table. Each man is in undress uniform, consisting 
of his queue, a pair of slippers, and pantaloons about six inches in 
length. They work both for shops and for individuals, receiving about 
five dollars a month ; yet somehow they manage to keep fat. 


EARNING A LIVING IN CHINA. 


675 


From tailor to shoemaker is a natural step, but it is a step down- 
ward in every sense. The shoemaker and fine embroiderer receive the 
lowest wages of any of the skilled workmen noted in the Canton list. 
Many shoes are covered with embroidery : so the two industries are 
frequently carried on under the same roof. Besides her regular sta- 
tioned shoemakers, China also has her travelling cobblers, who go from 
village to village, making new shoes and repairing old ones. One of 
these men will station himself by a thoroughfare and await the coming 
of his customers. A passer-by, wanting work done, will seat himself 
by the roadside until his job is finished. What is the use of his being 
in a hurry in this land where the pace was set, centuries ago, to the tune 
of Old Hundred ? 

In this one particular a Chinaman is like the rest of the world, — 
when hunger begins to manifest itself he quickens his pace. If he 
should chance to be far from his home with money in his pocket, there 
are restaurants, hotels, tea-saloons, and soup-stalls everywhere. Each 
of these places furnishes employment to many cooks and scullions. 
The cooks are very skilful in making palatable and nutritious dishes 
out of odds and ends ; then, too, as a rule, Chinese cooks seem to 
be clean. They earn from five to ten dollars per month, and board 
themselves. 

In the cities, trades of a kind are all of one mind in choosing a 
location. Even the hotels are usually grouped within a square or two 
of one another. Each one seeks to attract guests by high-sounding 
titles : for example, in Canton are hotels which flaunt the signs of 
The Fortunate Star,’^ The Golden Profits^’ (an unusually frank con- 
fession for a landlord to make), The Rank-Conferring,’’ and The 
Happiness.” The food is not so bad ; but the traveller who goes to 
one of these houses to sleep will wish that he had gone to another. 
The bedrooms are small, thin-walled boxes, in which you may hear the 
breathing of your next neighbor, or be kept awake half the night 
by the conversation of people at the other end of the hall, or, worse 
still, be almost stifled by the smoke from an opium pipe which is being 
indulged in by the man across the passage-way. 

The tea-saloons furnish employment to singers and ventriloquists, 
or elocutionists, who are hired by the proprietor to entertain the men 
who gather there to drink tea and gossip. Upon small tables are 
placed trays holding a variety of cakes and preserves, which are served 
with each cup of delicious, freshly-made tea. 

One house of entertainment peculiar to China is the dog-and-cat- 
meat restaurant. This does not mean that household pets are there 
brought to be fed, but that Tabby and Fido are served up in stews. 
According to prices charged for other food, these stews are rather ex- 
})ensive, — especially if the cat or dog chanced to be black, and there- 
fore more nutritious, according to popular notion. 

The following list was copied from a Chinese sign : 


One small basin black cat stew . 
Grease from black dog . 

One pair black cat^s eyes 


. 5 cts. 

. 4 cts. 

. 4 cts. 


676 


EARNING A LIVING IN CHINA. 


A dozen pair of black cat^s eyes could not put enough snap into 
the average Celestial to make him hurry. This stolid inertia lends 
itself most readily to the habit of gambling; for in the gaming-places 
they may sit and loaf all day, with the hope that evening may find 
them with several days^ wages in hand. Even when one is the loser, 
he dulls the pangs of hunger with opium, and dreams of the morrow, 
when he hopes to be the winner. The “ banker’^ in charge of the 
gambling-den is usually a fat, flaccid old spider, who gathers in the piles 
of coins and notes, recounts them quickly, and deducts the seven per 
cent, which the law allows him for his own well-filled money-bags. 
His manner of earning a living is not regarded with disfavor in this 
land where nearly all indulge, more or less, in the luxury of gambling, 
and where lottery is under government protection. 

The Chinese artist, like the professional gambler, lives in dreams. 
Too often the ne plus ultra of the hopes of both is more money for 
opium. In a dream he handles his brushes and produces gorgeous 
sunsets, distorted human beings, and living birds and flowers, all of 
which are exact copies of the decorations upon the most ancient Chi- 
nese porcelain. Any originality which the artist might possess he 
smothers in opium-smoke. 

The highest ambition which ever enters the mind of a parent in 
the laboring classes is the hope that a son of his may become a scholar. 
A bright boy from the most lowly home may by fine scholarship aspire 
to become a member of the Emperor^s Cabinet. If he falls short of 
this, he may be able to gain some lesser position under government. 
At any rate, he is almost sure of a clerkship, where he can earn in one 
month as much as his father does in three. Or he may become a 
merchant. 

These educated merchants, or shopkeepers, are among the finest 
men in the Orient. They are even more fond of their books than of 
money, although literally and figuratively they keep an eye upon both. 
When a possible buyer enters, the studious merchant keeps his book 
open, even continuing to read, until he is satisfied that the new-comer 
is not a loafer, but a customer ; then he exercises his trained mind in 
a lively effort to get the best of the bargain. At his shop-door is a tall 
sign announcing, in flowery language, the various rare objects which 
the heavenly being who condescends to keep the store has to offer for 
the eternal joy and satisfaction of his customers. Beautiful embroid- 
eries, quaint carvings in wood and ivory, elaborate shoes, fine work in 
wrought iron and brass, exquisite pottery, fans of every fancy, fine 
fabrics, in short, every Oriental object of use or beauty, may be pur- 
chased in these shops. 

In another part of the city raw materials may be purchased. 
These are brought from the interior on the backs of men, or in the 
river boats, or upon rafts which float down with the current, bearing 
whole families, who shelter under the peaked thatched hut which rests 
upon its uncertain foundation of logs. These river raftsmen and boat- 
men are a strong, hardy class of men, who work enough to develop 
some muscle, but never run any risks of over-exertion. 

It seems natural that these watermen should be a people by them- 


MARTHY^S DRESS. 


677 


selves ; but in China men of every trade and special line of work are 
clannish and exclusive. It is said that trade-unions were known in 
China hundreds of years before America was known to the dwellers 
upon the Eastern Continent. Whether this is true or not, it is cer- 
tain that at the present time each class of tradesmen owns a guild- 
house in every important town. Here the men gather to gossip with 
fellow-craftsmen from neighboring provinces ; for every countryman 
visits his own guild-house whenever he comes to town. The head- 
quarters for each trade-union are usually within a short distance of the 
temple dedicated to the worship of their own especial deity. 

Thus each trade has union in work, union in social pleasure, and 
union in worship ; yet, contrary to the proverb, all this union does not 
bring strength or an increase in wages. The countrymen of Li-Hung- 
Chang plod along steadily and continually, enjoying no more comforts 
than their ancestors who lived before trade-unions were even dreamed 
of, and before guild-houses were made to fill the long-felt want of a 
daily newspaper. 

Dora E. W. Spratt. 


MARTHY^S DRESS, 

n^ATURE had made her small and slight, time had given her gray 
hair and bent shoulders, and slow consumption had undertaken 
to accentuate the work of both. The trio, between them, had made 
her a pitiful little object to behold. 

But not many people beheld her, and the few who did failed to 
realize that she was dying. There were only the maid-of-all-work in 
the kitchen, the hired man about the farm, and, lastly, her husband, 
Nathan Albright. The former knew that her mistress was under the 
weather,^’ for Nathan Albright had so informed her when he had reluc- 
tantly engaged her services. He had also made her understand that 
her tenure of office hung upon the duration of his wife^s indisposition. 

We cert’nly can^t need you more than a few weeks,^^ he had said. 
‘^Marthy’s just got a bad cold, sort of settled on her lungs; she'll 
cert’nly be around again soon. She’s never needed help in the house 
before, and it’s a blessin’ she hain’t, for we cert’nly can’t afford it.” 

But the weeks had grown into months, and still Martha was not 
able to be around.” Nathan’s thrifty nature chafed at the slowness 
of her recovery. He could not understand it. Once or twice, for 
want of a better confidant, he talked to Robert, the hired man. 

cert’nly can’t see that anything really ails Marthy,” he said, 
perplexedly. If she was laid up flat of her back, now, with rheu- 
matiz, or out of her head with a fever, there’d be something to take 
hold of and doctor for. But she cert’nly has no pain to speak of, ex- 
cept a little in her side and breast of nights. She coughs a good deal, 
but that’s only a cold on her lungs. She says she’s weak, but I tell 
her that just comes of settin’ round from mornin’ to night. I’m ’most 
afeared I made a mistake when I got a girl in the kitchen. If there 


678 


MARTHY'S DRESS. 


wasn^t anybody to do the work I cert’nly believe Marthy’d never Ve 
given up to that cold the way she has/^ 

When the soft, warm rains of April 2 ind the bursting buds of 
early May had come and passed without working a cure on the inva- 
lid, Nathan^s patience waned rapidly. He became habitually gloomy, 
and indulged in a grumpy fit each time the servant-girl hinted that 
her wages were due, or Martha timidly asked for a bottle of cough 
medicine. 

Money goes out considerable faster than it comes in, these days,’^ 
he would say, with a look from beneath his lowering brows that never 
failed to send a shaft of self-reproach into Martha’s sensitive, shrinking 
soul. 

And all the time the shadow of death hung at the back of her 
chair and defied her to alter the situation one iota. With all her weak 
little might she tried to get well, knowing not that her foe was invin- 
cible, her fight hopeless. More than all, she strove to be cheerful in 
Nathan’s presence, hoping thus to cheer him. But he only wondered 
how a woman could smile with her hands folded in idleness and the 
cook’s wages running on forever. 

Nathan Albright was not consciously an unjust man ; but he was 
penurious, both by nature and by habit, and he was blind to his wife’s 
real condition. The shell about his soul and the scales over his eyes 
were so thick and hard that only the bony knuckles of death could 
crack them. 

The limit of his scant patience was reached one sunny morning in 
late May, — it was the 28th, he remembered ever afterward, — when he 
was preparing to go to town, and Martha ventured to ask for a new dress. 

Only seven yards of common calico,” she said ; then, seeing his 
face suddenly harden, she added, deprecatingly, I need it very bad, 
Nathan, or I wouldn’t ask for it now, when I am costin’ you so much. 
I really haven’t a change to put on while Susan washes this.” 

Nathan cleared his throat and braced himself as if to meet a crisis. 

Marthy,” he began, and the pale little woman shrank before his 
look as if it had been a blow, I’ve cert’nly never in my life seen a 
woman change as you’ve changed in the last year. If anybody’d told 
me a year or two ago that you’d ever give up to a little cold and a 
cough, and set down, as you have, and let everything go to rack and 
ruin, and always be askin’ for things that take money, I cert’nly 
wouldn’t ’ve b’lieved it. I thought you had more sense and nerve.” 

Martha’s pallor was death-like now, and her lips were trembling ; 
but she answered as steadily as she could. 

Well, never mind about the dress, Nathan. I’ll try to get along. 

I hope I’ll get better soon, or ” die,” she was about to say, but he 

interrupted her impatiently. 

You cert'nly ’ll never get better while you set here rockin’ your- 
self. If you’ll get up and go out in the kitchen and send that girl 
away, and then turn in and cook and eat a hearty dinner, same’s you 
used to. I’ll bet my hat you’ll get better. When you do that I’ll get 
you a new dress, yes, two of ’em, and cert’nly not before.” 

He left her then and went out into the sunshine. The hired man 


MARTHY^S DRESS. 


679 


and the team were awaiting him at the gate. He set his foot on the 
wheel, but paused long enough to transfer a roll of bank-bills from an 
outer to an inner pocket and button his coat. 

“ There’s forty dollars there, Robert/’ he said, patting his breast. 

I’ve cert’nly got to bring home that Southdown ram, if it takes every 
dollar ; but I hope to goodness he’ll go for less.” 

Then he climbed into the wagon and drove away. 

It was late in the afternoon when he returned. The roll of bank- 
bills in his pocket was greatly reduced, and the Southdown ram was 
lying, securely bound, in the bottom of the wagon. 

Nathan was surprised to see Robert coming swiftly down the lane 
to meet him. Hitherto his hired man had been content to await him 
at the gate. Ah, the ram ! Nathan smiled in a pleased way. Of 
course Robert was impatient to see the ram. 

I’ve got him, Robert ! Hurrah for the Southdown !” he shouted, 
excitedly. But Robert came straight on, with bowed head, never 
looking up until he had reached the wagon. There was a strange look 
in his eyes, and his sunburnt face was almost pale. 

They’ve sent me, sir, to tell you that — the mistress is — is very 
bad indeed,” he said, huskily. 

‘^What?” ejaculated Nathan, half incredulously. You mean 
that Marthy’s sick ?” 

Robert nodded, silently. 

Really sick 

Oh, sir, she’s — dreadful sick !” 

Nathan glanced at the house, and saw neighbors passing in and out 
and standing in the yard. 

Why, bless my soul !” he exclaimed, snatching the whip and 
touching up the horses. Why, if it should turn out that Marthy’s 
really sick, I — I ’most wish I’d got her that dress,” he muttered, as 
the wagon rattled down the lane to the house. 

A neighbor met him at the gate with solemn visage and extended 
hand. 

This is very sad and sudden for you, Mr. Albright,” he said, 
sympathetically. 

It cert’nly is,” responded Nathan, with earnestness. It’s just 
knocked me all of a heap. Marthy’s been complainin’ like for a long 
time, but I cert’nly didn’t think there was anything special ailed her. 
Won’t you come in and set down, Mr. Smith ? I must run in and see 
Marthy a minute.” 

Mr. Smith made no response to the neighborly invitation, and 
looked after Nathan in puzzled surprise as he bustled into the house. 

There were several neighbor women in the sitting-room, but 
Martha’s arm-chair by the window was empty. The women arose 
as Nathan entered, and one of them came to meet him with tears in 
her eyes. It suddenly struck Nathan that they were all more or less 
red-eyed. 

Why, Mrs. Armstrong,” he began, is Marthy so ” 

Mrs. Armstrong interrupted him with a solemn little nod towards 
the bedroom. 


680 


MARTHY^S DRESS. 


there/’ she explained, softly. We thought it best to leave 
her there for the present.” 

She laid her hand gently on his arm and drew him into the small 
darkened chamber. His eyes naturally turned to the bed. But how 
unfamiliar it looked, how strangely white and still, with a sheet spread 
all over it and drawn in rigid lines clear to the head-board ! If Marthy 
was there ! 

He stopped abruptly. A sharp, tearing pain, like a thrust with a 
jagged knife, shot through his heart. He saw the sheet lifted, caught 
one glimpse of the wan, still face beneath it, then staggered back and 
leaned heavily against the wall. 

Mrs. Armstrong began to weep afresh, and he dimly knew that 
she was saying something to him about the Lord’s will,” and resig- 
nation.” He stood perfectly still while the tall wooden clock on the 
sitting-room mantel ticked away sixty seconds of time. Then he went 
slowly out. The women in the sitting-room shrank back at sight of 
his face, but he saw none of them. He went to the kitchen where 
Susan was sitting alone. 

How was it, Susan? Tell me about it,” he said. 

The girl started at the sound of his broken voice. She, too, had 
been crying, and her voice, when she spoke, was unsteady. 

Why, sir, you hadn’t been gone a great while when I heard the 
door open, and there she was, lookin’ at me. Oh, I never can forget 
how she looked ! Her face was white as — as it is now, sir, and only 
her eyes was red, as if she’d been cryin’. She was tremblin’, and 
holdin’ to the door-post to keep from failin’. I went to her, but she 
wouldn’t let me help her. She smiled sort o’ pitiful, and she says, in a 
shaky way, — 

^ No, Susan dear, I must try to walk by myself. Mr. Albright 
thinks ’ 

Them was the very last words she ever spoke, sir, for just then she 
began to cough. I helped her to a chair, and she had the worst coughin’- 
spell I ever knew her to have. She made a motion towards the sittin’- 
room, and I started to bring her cough medicine, but before I’d reached 
the door she fell off the chair to the floor, and there was the blood 
runnin’ from her mouth all over her clothes and the floor. I was that 
scared I didn’t know what to do ; but I called Robert, and we carried 
her to bed. I did everything I could, sir, and Robert went for the 
doctor, but before he got here she was gone. 

The doctor thinks he’d ought to been called months ago ; but I 
told him nobody dreamed she was that bad. I’m sure I didn’t.” 

Nathan turned to the window. The red light of the low sun was 
streaming in. Just outside, across the fence, Robert was busy teth- 
ering the new Southdown ram. At sight of the animal Nathan was 
seized with a sudden, unreasoning fury. He snatched his rifle from its 
hooks on the wall and went out. 

Robert paused and looked at him curiously, and Susan peered un- 
easily after him from the door. The ram also gazed at him, standing 
squarely facing him, a magnificent beast. 

Nathan rested the rifle on the fence and took aim at the unconscious 


MARTHY'S DRESS. 081 

animal^s forehead. Robert stepped hastily forward and raised the rifle- 
barrel a few inches. 

‘‘ I don’t think you want to do that, sir,” he said, gently. I 
don’t think she would want you to, if she could see.” 

Nathan’s hands dropped away from the weapon, nervously. 

‘‘ Then take him away,” he said, hoarsely. Take him clear oflF 
the farm ; give him to somebody. Don’t let me lay eyes on him 
again.” 

He walked swiftly away down the lane, and all that night he was 
gone from the house. Nobody knew where he was. But in the early 
dawn Robert was awakened by the creaking of the barn-yard gate. 
Nathan was leading a saddled horse out into the lane, and in the dim 
light Robert saw him mount and ride away. 

Some hours later, his sister, an estimable maiden lady, arrived from 
her home, twenty miles distant, prepared to condole with him. She 
was scandalized to find him absent from home at such a time. When 
he returned, at noon, she met him on the threshold. 

Why, Nathan, where on earth have you been ? What have you 
there ?” 

The latter query related to a paper parcel he carried carefully be- 
neath one arm. 

It’s a — a dress for Marthy,” he faltered. I want her to be 
buried in it, Sarah. Get a dress-maker and have it made right up.” 

He cut the strings of the parcel, and billows of shining silk 
streamed out upon the table. Sarah gasped, and held up her hands. 

Oh, Nathan ! What ever possessed you ? She can’t be buried 
in that !” 

I’d like to know why, Sarah.” 

Because it wouldn’t do. You see, they don’t burj^ people in any- 
thing but black or white. We’re making a nice fine white shroud 
for Marthy.” 

‘‘But, Sarah, I feel that Marthy would cert’nly ’ve liked this.” 

“No doubt she would, if she could ’ve had it when she was 
alive. But they don’t bury folks in purple silk with yellow vines all 
over it.” 

“ It ain’t purple, Sarah ; it’s heliotrope, the clerk said, and it’s the 
finest and han’somest piece in all Bridgeport. Them yellow vines is 
the purtiest part of it. Marthy would cert’nly ’ve liked it.” 

“ Well, she wouldn’t ’ve wanted to be buried in it, anyway.” 

Nathan looked unconvinced and miserable, but he contended no 
longer. He rolled up the silk and locked it away in a bureau drawer. 

The next day Martha was clothed in the white shroud and laid to 
rest in the little country burial-ground. 

“ If a body must die, it’s kind of nice to be buried on Memorial 
Day,” said Sarah, as they wended their slow way homeward. 

“ Is this Memorial Day?” queried Nathan, suddenly, as if awakened 
from a dream. 

“ Why, yes, of course it is. Didn’t you notice the graves all 
trimmed up with flowers?” 

“ No. I didn’t see nobody’s grave but Marthy’s.” 


682 


DRIFT- WOOD. 


Well, I’m sure hers was covered with flowers. But, I must say, 
it would ’ve looked becomin’, Nathan, if you’d laid a wreath on, your- 
self, or at least a bouquet. I should ’ve thought you’d ’ve wanted to.” 

No, I shouldn’t ’ve cared to. There was only one thing I wanted 
to give Marthy, and you said it wasn’t suitable.” 

Oh, you mean the silk ? Mercy ! no, that wouldn’t ’ve done at 
all. It’s a pity you wasted the money on it, Nathan.” 

^^I only wish to heaven I’d wasted it a little sooner.” 

The words and tone had in them the bitterness of death. 

It surely would make a lovely dress for a IwwH woman,” said 
Sarah, with what she considered very delicate suggestiveness. 

That evening, after dinner, Nathan was missing, and a thunder- 
storm was coming on. To Sarah’s anxious inquiries for him, Susan 
replied, — 

I think, ma’am, he’s gone back to the graveyard. I seen him 
take a bundle out of the bureau and go down that way.” 

‘‘ Why, what on earth ” began Sarah, but, suddenly checking 

herself, she donned rubbers and water-proof and went out. The storm 
was coming on rapidly, but she did not hesitate, and presently she 
stood behind a cedar in the little graveyard and beheld a scene that 
she never forgot. 

All the flowers had been removed from Martha’s grave and laid 
carefully aside. In their stead the mound was decked from head to 
foot in shining waves of silk. Nathan, with unsteady hands, was 
draping it in folds up against the small head-board, in clumsy imita- 
tion of the shopman’s art. The rain that was beginning to fall mingled 
with his tears, and the lightning flashes lit up the shimmering meshes 
of the silk. 

Suddenly he ceased his efforts and fell upon his knees. His shaken 
voice reached the listener. 

“ Marthy dear,” he said, with unutterable tenderness, if you can 
look down and see it, I know you’ll like it. And if you can under- 
stand how I felt when I bought it for you, I know you’ll forgive me 
for everything. If I thought you couldn’t, I cert’nly don’t noways 
see how I could live.” 

Sarah’s sharp eyes were dim. She turned and stole softly away. 

I’m ’most afraid his mind’s unbalanced,” she whispered to herself. 
^‘It’s dreadful to see that silk gettin’ ruined that way. There’s ten 
^rds of it, at least, and never a cent less than two dollars a yard ! 
But, land ! I hain’t the heart to say a word to him.” 

Carrie Blake Morgan, 


DRIFT-WOOD. 

W HAT other fuel can so make the fire of Memory glow 

As listening to forgotten songs we sang long, long ago? 

Clarence TJrmy. 


EARLY MAN IN AMERICA. 


683 


EARLY MAN IN AMERICA. 


Here lived and planned and toiled another race, 

A prehistoric race, forgotten long. 

Who in the speech of men have left no trace. 
Unknown alike to story and to song. 

Jones Very. 


W E used to think that the Indian, or rather his predecessor the 
so-called Mound-Builder, was the first American ; but archae- 
ology is enlightening us, and we are beginning to find that far back of 
all these there were other peoples who dwelt where we do now, and 
that these old river- valleys of ours once throbbed with human life long 
before the days of Mound-Builder or Indian, and that this land was 
discovered thousands and thousands of years before Columbus was 
born. 

These ancient people w^hose life-history is all but lost to us have 
left no record of their being, save the roughly chipped stones which 
served them as weapons or for the primitive arts of the household ; 
and it is on these rude implements that are based the deductions for 
the existence of early man — palaeolithic is his scientific name — in 
America. 

Just about twenty years ago Dr. Charles C. Abbott, the distinguished 
naturalist, began finding some of these palaeolithic implements deep 
down in the gravel-beds at Trenton, and all these years he has been 
trying to convince the scientific world of their genuineness. His labors 
have been so well corroborated elsewhere that we now believe these to 
be the veritable relics of those prehistoric races who in the early days 
of the world left their handiwork in the river gravels of almost every 
land. 

These Trenton relics have excited wide discussion ; but as trained 
scientists have pronounced upon their artificial origin, and as the un- 
disturbed character of the beds has been proved by experts, the exist- 
ence of early man in the valley of the Delaware does not rest upon a 
shadowy basis. Plainly stated, men lived in the Delaware valley when 
the floods from the melting of the Great Glacier were pouring seaward 
through a river fifty feet higher than now : primitive man dropped his 
weapons in the swollen stream : gravel, sand, and mud covered all, 
and the sunlight has never since seen these ancient remains, until the 
archaeologist resurrected them to tell the forgotten story of humanity^s 
early life in the far-away days when man and the mastodon lived and 
died side by side. 

Professor George Frederick Wright, struck by the similarity of 
certain gravels in the Ohio valley to those at Trenton, stimulated in- 
vestigation in that locality, and implements have been found in several 
places in Ohio, one of which was thirty feet below the surface of un- 
disturbed soil. 

At the Springfield meeting of the American Association, Professor 
Wright exhibited a small chert implement which was found at Bril- 


684 


EARLY MAN JN AMERICA. 


liant, Ohio. The circumstances of the find and the character of the 
implement make it, he says, the most important evidence of glacial 
man yet adduced.” 

Later observations on the beds below Trenton under the trained 
eyes of Abbott, Wright, and Putnam corroborate all former observa- 
tions, and, in addition, these recent explorations tend to show that, in 
the valley of the Delaware at least, the stone age was characterized by 
two distinct stages. In numerous excavations at this place, the first 
foot or so always contains flint and jasper implements, but below this 
all are of argillite. Argillite, a hard slate, is the only material in this 
locality which was available for such use, and so early man, when he 
lived here, used it : later races, as they became more acquainted with 
the country and more skilled in the art of chipping stone, procured the 
harder flint and jasper, and discarded in a great measure the softer 
argillite. 

Rude implements have also been found in the terraces of the Upper 
Mississippi, and it is likely that patient search of like beds in other 
river-valleys will yield fruitful results. 

All the implements, with one or two exceptions,* have been found 
in beds corresponding to the Trenton gravels ; much study conse- 
quently has been expended on the age of these beds, since it gives a 
clue to fixing the time of man^s advent on American soil. 

It is now generally conceded that all these river deposits and cor- 
responding beds were laid down during the Great Ice Age which drew 
to a close some six to ten thousand years ago. Some of the beds were 
caused by the overflowing rivers, and others, along the sea, by con- 
joined action of river and wave over a submerged land. The older 
and higher beds were deposited when the ice was at its maximum ex- 
tension, and in these nothing has yet been found except a relic at 
Claymont in Delaware. The lower beds, corresponding to the Trenton, 
belong to a later era, when the ice and snow had retreated several 
hundred miles : in these only do we find positive traces of man in the 
rude palseoliths, which are of course of no later date than the beds in 
which they rest. Some are probably much older, for their weather- 
worn condition shows long exposure prior to burial : others, again, 
seem so fresh as to leave no doubt that they were lost and covered 
while newly made. 

In the implement-bearing gravels we find the bones of many an 
animal which lived with man and was buried with his weapons; but 
of man himself only one relic has come to notice which deserves any 


* Professor Claypole has recently reported the finding of human relics in 
the drift of Ohio : these deposits belong, however, to the “ closing years of the 
glacial era,’^ and do not differ much in time from the later river gravel ; but the 
relics distinctly differ from those at Trenton in that they seem to belong to a 
later phase of stone age culture, the neolithic. If this find is authentic, — and 
there is every reason to believe that it is, — we must suppose that palaeolithic men 
lived on the Delaware and the Ohio while at the same time neolithic men were 
living not far distant. To show that this was possible, it is necessary only to 
remind the reader that there was once a time when weapons of iron and steel 
were made on the Atlantic seaboard while arrow-points and axes of stone were 
fashioned beyond the Alleghanies. 


EARLY MAN IN AMERICA. 


685 


consideration, and that is the famous Calaveras skull, which was found 
in ancient gravel underneath Table Mountain, in Calaveras County, 
California. 

Table Mountain is a lava mountain, and for this reason great 
antiquity has been attributed to these remains; but it is very likely — 
so modern investigators tell us — that these gravels are no older than, 
perhaps not so old as, the Eastern beds; for lava ejections have 
occurred very recently in Western America. Still this skull is the 
oldest of its kind on the continent, and it is interesting to note that it 
represents a fair average head of good facial angle and ample brain- 
capacity. 

How palaeolithic man got to this land — for it does not seem likely 
that the genus homo was indigenous here — is a question that has puzzled 
the wisest ; perhaps by way of Greenland, over the bridging ice-field 
which probably connected Europe and America. However, we know 
that he did get here, and, as the first wandering bands of these old 
hunters came, we know, too, that they found a land of snow and ice, 
of great rivers and many lakes. It seems probable, from the finding 
of occasional implements in the older gravels, that the earliest emi- 
grants arrived while the glacier was at its maximum. 

One unbroken field of ice had spread over all the North, covering 
Manhattan Island a thousand feet and reaching to within fifty miles 
of Philadelphia. As the years passed, more bands of these hardy 
explorers reached this land, and as the second and later recessions * of 
the ice occurred, with accompanying flooded rivers, it is likely that a 
fairly dense palaeolithic population peopled our river-valleys. It was 
a long time since the first of their race came over the ice : a far-distant 
past it must have seemed — as it truly was to these later-day men. 

To us the founding of Egypt is so far away that it seems almost 
wholly mythical ; but the time which elapsed between the period of 
maximum glaciation and the later days of the epoch was possibly five 
times longer. Yet this is one of the short periods in the life-history 
of the infant race. Such was time in the beginning. 

To the south of the glacier there were the same hills and valleys 
that we now see ; the forests were made up of familiar trees, willow, 
walnut, oak and poplar, spruce and pine; and the new-born land, as it 
slowly emerged from under the retreating ice, though bare to the rock, 
soon took on a coating of green. 

As the melting continued, the overflowing waters filled all the low- 
lands, and lakes unknown to us sprang into existence. One of these. 
Lake Ohio the geologists call it, was occasioned by an ice-dam at Cin- 
cinnati and covered the whole lower part of the State : another. Lake 
Lesley, named for Professor Lesley, filled some of the mountain valleys 
of Central Pennsylvania. If men lived on the Delaware and Ohio, 
it is very likely that they hunted on the banks of these great glacial 


* The glacial period was not one of continual advance followed by continual 
retreat. Ten moraines in the Eastern States, according to Upham, show ten 
different stages of the ice. The interval between the first and second advances, 
marked by the higher and lower gravel south of the ice limit, is supposed to be 
very long : after this the retreat was more or less rapid, geologically speaking. 


686 


EARLY MAN IN AMERICA. 


lakes. Long since their waters have drained away, and nothing re- 
mains but the ancient shore-lines. 

The climate which covered this world was, of course, somewhat 
diflTerent from the present. It was colder, and the precipitation was 
greater, but the existence of certain plants shows that a comparatively 
temperate climate prevailed to the south of the ice ; yet it was anom- 
alous. Animals which loved the cold and those of a torrid land were 
curiously mingled. Troops of mastodons wandered over the land and 
gorged themselves on the soft twigs of spruce and fir. The slow, 
lumbering, woolly rhinoceros wallowed in the muddy streams and 
lakes. Moose and reindeer ranged the woods : perhaps the Indian 
story of the Great White Moose is a survival transmitted from palaeo- 
lithic days, when this animal was actually larger than now. Droves 
of horses and oxen roamed the plains ; but they were slain for food, 
for not yet had man learned the value of beasts of burden. 

Early man could have set at naught the Chinese legend that the 
mammoth belonged to the nether world and died if he breathed the 
outer air, for only too often he must have met these giants of old, 
protected from the cold by a covering of long black hair and thick red 
wool. 

All this time, while the great floods were pouring seaward and 
gigantic animals were stalking up and down the land, it is likely that 
men were living on the banks of our rivers and lakes. 

Judging from skeletons found in Europe, palaeolithic man was short 
of stature and had a low retreating forehead : it is supposed that he 
had a yellowish skin, which was covered with coarse hair, much like 
the Ainu of Yezo. He was strong in body, but he had the diminu- 
tive mind of a child. Wild and fierce, he knew little of pity or of 
love : he was lower in savagery than any we know, but he bore the 
germs of a better race : he was only a hunter, living on the animals he 
had slain and the roots and nuts he could gather. At war with his 
neighbor and at war with himself, his life was racked with fears and 
torments, and his mind filled with debasing superstitions, which civil- 
ization has hardly yet wholly eliminated. 

Clothing of the crudest he made from skins. He had no home 
save a rock-shelter ; * and in one such ready-made home, by the banks 
of the Susquehanna, we have evidence that early man once feasted on 
deer and bison : such was perhaps his greatest pleasure. His only 
weapons were rude spears tipped with the relics we now find, or ruder 


* These rock-retreats are the earliest homes of the race, and they still serve 
the same purpose, in a degenerate way. Not long since, when passing through 
the lower Susquehanna Valley, the writer came across one of these retreats. 
Here, where most likely early man protected himself from cold and storm, a 
band of wandering tramps had taken possession, and were feasting, not on hard- 
earned prey, but on food which they had begged or perhaps stolen from the 
neighboring village. Though six thousand years, at the least, had passed away 
since the first-comers stopped here, these latter-day patrons did not seem to show 
the six thousand years of progress. A photograph of the scene which I wit- 
nessed in the dim twilight of that cold December day — the filthy, unkempt, 
half-clothed men, standing around the blazing fire— would not have differed 
much, in general outline, from the same scene taken sixty centuries ago, 


LIFE IN THE COTTON BELT. 687 

knives : perhaps he had a primitive bow and arrow : with these he 
had to wage war on the hugest animals that ever existed. 

In these dark and cheerless days man was not all alone : woman 
too had a share, which was probably more of sorrow than of joy. Her 
condition must have been somewhat lower than that of woman in the 
lowest of the wild tribes of to-day, — not man’s helpmeet, but his slave. 
Man was not yet her lover, only her master ; but deep down in this 
slave-woman’s breast were the germs, only waiting development, of 
those tenderer feelings which have made man human and have been 
the most potent factors in assisting the race to mount the golden steps 
of progress. 

What became of these palaeolithic men we can only conjecture. 
Perhaps they loved so well their ice-clad land that they followed the 
retreating glacier and became the Eskimos of to-day. We really know 
only that with the passing of the great floods and the giant mammals 
they too fade from view : another turn of the hand on the great dial, 
and another race, descended, as we, from palaeolithic ancestors in 
Europe or Asia, appears, with a higher degree of primitive art and 
skill. Chipped and polished weapons of flint and jasper take the 
place of the rude palseolith, and the old race is forgotten in the birth- 
day glories of the new. 

Harvey B. Bashore. 


LIFE IN THE COTTON BELT. 

T he stranger who saw the Atlanta Exposition, small and unim- 
posing though it was compared to the Columbian mammoth at 
Chicago, came away full of hope for the Cotton States in their un- 
fathomed resources of field and forest, mine and factory. A few days 
later the same visitor may have felt a sense of discouragement in 
travelling through the rural districts, because of a monotonous con- 
trast constantly showing itself there between the vastness of geo- 
graphic areas and the restriction of sociological conditions. The every- 
day face of Dixie” still shows the care and uncertainty resultant upon 
the social upheaval of the civil war : a vague sadness seems to brood 
over the silence of untrodden woods and flowery glades, a thick pall 
of Spanish moss trailing pensively over the gigantic live-oaks and the 
sinewy cypress- trees. Most of the ancestral homes have been aban- 
doned by their owners for a residence in the cities, the white-columned 
porticos of the favorite colonial architecture now mouldering in decay, 
the wide and once hospitable front halls resounding only to the rough 
banter and quarrels of negro tenants and their children. To a fine 
and sympathetic ear the astral shell of a former state seems to be 
giving forth plaints for the loved and lost, echoes of the old ante- 
bellum days in the Southland. 

No nation that is once rid of any form of serfdom ever wants to 
come under the curse again, but it is scarcely surprising that the con- 
science of the world was first aroused against negro slavery in quarters 


688 


LIFE IN THE COTTON BELT. 


where it was unprofitable, and where its abolition did not involve the 
disintegration of estates and the impoverishment of clans. Certain 
it is that with the blessings of emancipation have come also many of 
the evils dreaded by the fathers of the present land-owners, who are 
obliged to dwell in the midst of an unreliable, shifting, and ignorant 
element in a cooperative relation necessary for the success of agricultural 
purposes. 

The large majority of landed proprietors who still reside on their 
plantations are cotton-growers, the Cotton Belt embracing the heart of 
the Southern country. There are three variations in the labor system 
now prevailing : these are renting, going halves or quarters as the case 
may differ, and hiring, each of which presents its special difficulties to 
the land-owner, who must vary his contracts according to the capacity 
of the negro laborers, suffer financially for every mistake he makes in 
gauging their character and experience, and continually array his in- 
telligence and watchfulness against their idleness, cunning, and pilfer- 
ing, or come out worsted at the end of the year. It is difficult to 
secure the half of everything produced, and it is unwise to give most 
negroes full control of their one-horse’^ or ^Hwo-horse^^ farms, as 
often they are too lazy to fill up gullies and prevent surface drainage, 
usually preferring to cultivate partly a large piece of ground rather 
than make a small piece yield its full capacity. The exchange system 
prevails, produce standing for cash in transactions between landlords, 
tenants, and merchants. 

The typical negro tenant arrives at a new home in a mule- wagon 
or ox-cart with a bundle of rags, a frying-pan, and a covey of chil- 
dren, and he stays with a landlord who may have saved him from des- 
titution by advancing provisions and dry-goods, only so long as the 
caprice of the hour dictates. Land-owners who have sunk into finan- 
cial ruin by mortgaging their property have nearly always been dragged 
into the slough by the effort to help their negroes out of it. The crop 
made by the average negro farmer is subject to many contingencies be- 
sides those of the weather. He does not hesitate to leave his field at 
the most critical season if pleasure calls him, big meetings^’ he never 
can resist, and these take place during the important agricultural 
months of July and August, first at one church and then at another. 
After the mules have been working hard all the week in this busy 
season, they are often driven from ten to fifteen miles on Sundays, 
carrying wagon-loads of men, women, and children, long bright ribbons 
flying out from the heads of the female members of the family, whose 
hair has been tightly plaited and bound with cords during the week in 
order to produce a holiday sensation in an ample psyche knot at the 
back and a bushel-like roundness in front ; they appear in fancy waists 
and big sleeves, and regale themselves and their friends with a dinner 
of fried chicken, cake, and watermelons after the meeting, rags being 
good enough to wear, hoecake and bacon good enough to eat, during 
the week. Like his African ancestors, the American negro is misera- 
ble without jollifications and feastings; if he can have them he will do 
a hard job of work betweentimes. Commonly in the South now he 
works about five or six months of the year, with occasional merry- 


LIFE IN THE COTTON BELT. 


689 


makings interspersed, and spends the other months in dozing over the 
wood fire in his cabin, or in dangling his legs over a cotton-bale at the 
nearest station to gaze open-mouthed at the trains as they go by. One 
who was amusing himself in the latter fashion at Thomasville, Georgia, 
a winter resort for Northern invalids, was asked by a visitor how he 
managed to make a living. We libs on watermilions in summer, sah, 
an’ sick Yankees in winter,” was the prompt reply. 

Cotton is literally king on one of these plantations, everything of 
a merely luxurious and ornamental character becoming secondary to its 
demands upon the grower who lives in the ‘‘ big house.” His front 
garden may be neglected, but his cotton-fields must blossom as the 
rose, or rather as the hollyhock, which their flower resembles, yellow 
in the morning sunlight and assuming a pinkish tinge towards even- 
ing. The flowers do not all mature at the same time, and the ripened 
staple has to be released from the bolls by a number of different pick- 
ings. The seed-cotton when gathered is usually sent to the towns to 
be ginned by the steam process, but a few shaky old gin-houses of the 
ancient regime may still be seen on plantations, the negroes covered 
with snowy flakes as they drive the patient mules round the great 
wheel, or stuff the machine above it, the separated lint flying into an 
adjoining compartment. The Southern planters enjoy raising cotton, 
finding it the only product that is synonymous with money at all sea- 
sons of the year. When it brings eight cents and upwards they feel 
encouraged, and are likely to plant too much of it the next season, 
instead of varying their crops, and then over-production brings the 
market price down again. 

Machines for picking cotton will take the place of human hands 
after a while. One was exhibited on the Fair grounds at Atlanta, its 
working power equal to that of forty men, with injury to only a small 
percentage of the green bolls. After seeing this machine in operation 
I was recounting its marvels one day to a darky in the country who was 
laboriously picking a big cotton-patch with his bag slung over his 
shoulder, and he grinned in happy anticipation of its adoption. I 
sutin’y would like to see dat !” he exclaimed, in his sirnplicity think- 
ing only of the saving of labor it would be to himself, for picking 
cotton by the day is hard on the back. He did not perceive that the 
consequence of millions saved to the planters in money would be an 
equal loss to the negroes in wages. As a compensation, however, it 
may safely be predicted that ultimately the cotton-mills in general will 
be near the cotton-fields, instead of the products being shipped to manu- 
facturing towns a thousand miles away. When that day comes, a new 
era will open to the Afro-Americans in the South. Already the colored 
operatives employed at the knitting-mills in Charleston are giving 
satisfaction . 

The millions spent on the education of the Southern negroes in the 
last thirty years show creditably in the exhibits of their normal schools 
and wherever the white man’s civilization stands before them as an 
object-lesson ; but book-learning cannot always be made available for 
support, and the race in gross as seen through the rural districts has 
changed very little from its two hundred years’ experiment with civi- 
VoL. LIX.— 44 


690 


LIFE IN THE COTTON BELT. 


lizatioD. The most apparent divergence from the native African type 
which was first brought over by Northern slave-traders is manifested 
in a development of the affectional instincts, and this is due to the 
long-standing relations of slaves with their masters’ families. There 
is something pathetic in their tacit dependence on superiors whenever 
it is possible to lean on them for help. Religion with the country 
specimen is still a mixture of voodooism and emotional Christianity, 
having no definite connection with morality. The young colored 
women get converted” in a revival time, the ensuing ceremony of 
immersion or joining the church becoming a kind of passport to society. 
When they marry legally and set up housekeeping they usually take 
with them at least one child, whom they refer to as their stolen 
child,” step-fathers indulgently adopting and helping to support such 
illegitimate offspring. 

In proportion to instincts and aspirations, the land-owners and 
their families have more privations to encounter than their colored 
tenants can be said to suffer, for these have enough to eat, and an 
inexhaustible supply of fuel, and take no thought of the morrow. 
There is no approach to the want and starvation of the slum residents 
in large Northern cities. A severe winter, however, fairly paralyzes 
the negroes : they crouch over their roaring wood fires, stop up the 
chinks of their board windows, and refuse to exert themselves until the 
cold spell” is over. In such seasons the mistress of the plantation has 
to respond to all sorts of demands on her storehouse and her pharma- 
copoeia ; she mothers everybody, and must be ready to diagnose and 
prescribe for every mysterious ill that flesh is heir to. On a frozen 
morning, when the sun is feebly struggling up a gray sky, perhaps a 
small darky will present himself at the back door with a message like 
this : 

Miss Sally” (the lady is always Miss,” even if a great-grand- 
mother), daddy say he kyant git to de barn dis mornin’. He feared 
he got de pneumony on de heart ; de cold done struck him in de chis’ 
so hard he sufferin’ terrible. He say please ma’am send him some o’ 
dat stuff whar Unc’ Billy rubbed hissef wid.” 

Or the message may come in this shape : 

“ Mammy say you must ’scuse her f’om washin’ de close dis mawnin’ ; 
it too cold ; her toe done swole, an’ she can’t walk. She say won’t 
you please send her a piece o’ dat plaster fo’ her toe what you gin her 
befo’ ; an’ we ’ain’t got no bacon in de house, an’ de baby had de spaz- 
zles in de night.” 

Housekeepers have peculiar difficulties in the country, the old edi- 
tion of cooks, housemaids, and butlers having died out, without a new 
one of the same stability and efficiency to take their places. They 
have neither the retinue nor the leisure to keep up the pleasant old 
custom of trooping about from one plantation to another in gay house- 
parties, but they are still hospitable to the core, and can give a guest 
a good dinner, even if they have little or no ready money. Pork, 
chickens, hominy, sweet potatoes, and corn bread are the staple articles 
of diet; and be it noted that pork in the hands of a careful housewife 
bears much the same relation to the common hog-meat sold in the 


LIFE IN THE COTTON BELT. 091 

Northern city markets that a cauliflower sustains to a cabbage, for a 
shote brought up on ground-peas becomes a delicate viand. 

The Southern aristocrats have acquired a degree of contentment 
and cheerfulness in their reduced circumstances. The need for economy 
does not worry them as it does the residents of cities in the North. 
This is due in part to a native ease of temperament, also to the fact 
that no loss of caste is feared, as their acquaintances are in the same 
situation ; and more than all it is due to their immense inherited fund 
of self-esteem. The women as well as the men have a wonderful re- 
serve force and have developed an unsuspected energy. Many ladies 
are managing plantations with marked executive ability while their 
husbands and sons are holding government offices at Washington or 
positions in other cities. 

All plantation life is to a considerable extent patriarchal, except 
that instead of the women’s being subordinated to masculine pleasure 
and aggrandizement as with the patriarchs of old, they are set on a 
pedestal and practically worshipped. It makes little difference to this 
modern patriarch of the Cotton Belt if his cuffs are frayed and his 
coat rusty, so long as his wife and daughters wear suits to church that 
are as stylish as his crops can pay for and their village dress-maker can 
devise. It is a feature of the day in the South as well as elsewhere 
that women are being better educated than men. In the Northern 
States of the Union this higher culture is tending manifestly to celibacy, 
but in rural localities through the South the girls come back from acade- 
mies and colleges and accept the young men who stayed at home to 
work the plantations, the same ones they would have married had they 
not gone away for the education the parents sacriflced so much to bestow. 
They know what splendid material these men are made of, and in the 
attraction between the eternal Womanly and the eternal Manly the 
question of book-learning counts for little. To lead a patriarchal life 
without a patriarch would be dull indeed, and it must be said that it 
requires courage of a superior order to remain single in a situation 
which would offer little aim and stimulus outside of wifehood and 
maternity after youth has waned. For this reason youth is considered 
the high prize, the valuable capital and stock in trade. The women 
fade no earlier than their Northern sisters, but, owing to an inherited 
habit of thought, the label of decay is respectfully fastened on them 
by the popular mind while they are still in their prime and in the 
Northern and Eastern States would be accounted capable of all things, 
even of marrying well. 

In some of the large cities things begin to wear a different aspect ; 
when the girls leave school they get something to do, and talk about 
having a career.” Many are not marrying as early as has been the 
fashion, but late marriages are still exceptional : Atlanta, however, can 
report the marriage of a spinster numbering seventy summers to a 
bridegroom nearing one hundred. Atlanta always manages to take 
the lead in the Cotton Belt. 

Southern women, whatever they do or decline to do, value im- 
measurably their feminine status and prerogative. A discussion of the 
question whether woman is man’s equal is seldom heard, so fully is it 


692 


LIFE IN THE COTTON BELT 


conceded everywhere that she is his superior : even in business offices up 
to this date representatives of the sex have been treated with the tra- 
ditional courtesy. This universal deference is not superficial, but innate : 
from governor and senator to conductor and policeman, the man who 
could make himself comfortable at the expense of a woman would be 
regarded as a barbarian. The only disagreeable thing the Southern 
men insist upon doing in her presence is spitting tobacco. This 
objectionable American practice is in full swing in country neighbor- 
hoods and on railroad trains, but in cities it is not so much in evidence. 

On election days most of the plantation negroes take holiday. 
Their zeal about voting, however, depends largely upon the extent of 
the watermelon crop during the previous summer; they always attend 
political meetings in great numbers when a liberal supply of that fruit 
is provided for their delectation between the stump speeches. It can 
scarcely be estimated that one out of five hundred of these untutored 
peasants from the cotton-field votes intelligently, and it would be useless 
to deny that should the white residents of any county feel that the 
negro vote en masse has been cast against its prosperity they would 
render it null and void in one way or another. This will always be 
done while a half-civilized dark race occupies the soil in nearly equal 
proportions; in the Black Belt of Alabama and Mississippi it out- 
numbers the whites in a ratio of from three to seven. The outside 
world chronicles every mob riot, White Cap’^ outrage, and lynching 
on Southern territory as if these demonstrations were commonplace 
affairs, but it must be remembered that the area of the Southern States 
covers thousands of miles, and the proportion of crime is less than in 
some other parts of the country, wherein specific offences against law 
and order may be of a different character, but certainly offer variations 
quite as hideous. 

In small matters a black man can get justice done him now more 
easily than his white employer can, for he is less likely to hesitate 
about the means employed, and continual allowance is made for his 
deficiencies and peccadilloes. The new negro also goes to law very 
readily about his rights and claims. Recently one brought suit for 
slander against another in Georgia, his grievance being that the de- 
fendant had been injurin’ his stipulated characteristics.” 

Dese little five-collar lawyers is ruinin’ dis whole country,” one 
of the more conservative colored people remarked, sadly. 

Between low-class negroes and low-class whites there has always 
been a marked antagonism ; they have no patience with each other ; 
and this instinctive prejudice accounts for many of the lynchings. It 
is doubtful, however, in those agricultural communities, imperfectly 
protected by police and telegraph, whether any deterrent law will 
always be able to prevent the immediate shooting or hanging of a 
criminal who has committed a cold-blooded murder or an assault upon 
a woman, or who has wantonly cut the levee to cause an overflow of 
the Mississippi. These guilty wretches are usually bestial tramps and 
unemployed negroes. 

The impression produced on any stranger who visits the Cotton 
States is one of a quiet life, of less apparent demand for excitement 


LIFE IN THE COTTON BELT 


693 


than he has seen in other sections. On the plantations the colored 
people, though not over-grateful for past favors, would defend in- 
stinctively the white family that helps them in their daily problems, 
and in many cases they are living in their humble cabins as the sole 
protectors of the women and children in the neighboring mansion, 
just as they used to do in war times. If the South is goaded some- 
times to deal in a summary and severe fashion with a wicked negro, on 
the Other hand no outsider can fully understand her patience with a 
merely idle and unreliable one and her affection for a really good one. 
The repute of some thoroughly good negroes extends for miles, and 
they are never without white friends to watch with them by the cradle 
and mourn with them over the bier. 

The sentiment felt for the Lost Cause throughout the Cotton States 
can be compared only to the place an old love sometimes holds in the 
heart of a woman. She may recognize its folly and futility, and would 
not bring it back to life if she could, to disturb existing relations, but 
it remains enthroned and sceptred as an ideal. These Southerners have 
no apology to make for their attempt to break up the sham union 
which existed for years before the war, or for their unconcealed hos- 
tility to the enforced union which existed after the war during the 
reconstruction period, and the few ex-Confederates who have shown 
a regret for their fight for independence have been tabooed socially. 
To the present Union, however, all are loyal: the principle of central- 
ization having been established gradually and effectually, everything 
has been adjusted to it. Time has spread its healing balm over many 
a wound ; the surviving soldiers of the once conflicting armies have met 
in honest friendship, one side carrying a crutch or an empty coat-sleeve 
as manfully as the other. Regiments have been feted royally in 
banquet-halls by cities from which they were stoned and expelled at 
the point of the bayonet. Northern governors and their staffs have 
been welcomed to the homes of the omnipresent Southern colonels^^ 
with their highest flights of spread-eagle oratory and bands playing 
Yankee Doodle come to town^^ with frantic drum-beats. Northern 
capital has repaired the ravages of flood, flame, and earthquake on 
Southern soil, and established manufacturing industries that have an 
ever-expanding horizon ; improved facilities for transportation multiply 
channels of trade in every direction, and continual travel multiplies 
intermarriages. 

If a distinctly American type can be found on this continent, it is 
in ^^Dixie^s Land,^^ where, with the exception of the Latin racial 
strains in Alabama and Louisiana, there has been little foreign ad- 
mixture since colonial times. There is no danger that the younger 
generation will not grow up patriotic and tenacious Americans, but, 
like their elders, they have a passionate and dominating local attach- 
ment. When the voiceless winter night in the country broods over the 
fields and woods on the plantation outside, the family in the “ big house^^ 
gathers around an open fire, the crackling pine knots lighting up every 
dim corner. Mother and grandmother have stories to tell of their 
anxieties, of their clever household and toilet devices in the war time ; 
father and grandfather relate their hairbreadth escapes, their hardships, 


694 


A ^^STAR ROUTED’ CASE. 


the jokes of their camp life, or the circumstances which led to a memo- 
rable interview with one of the great chieftains. At such moments 
the worlds of reality and of fable have an indefinite boundary-line; the 
heroic figures of Lee on his gray horse, Jackson on Old Sorrel,’^ and 
Stuart on his white charger take hold of the youthful imagination and 
lead on the untried soul to high endeavor, their valiant deeds borrowing 
the color and tone of romance from the blue glory of the past’^ until 
they combine their forces in that delightful border-land of fact and 
fancy with those of King Arthur and Sir Lancelot, the Black Prince 
and the Lion-Heart. 


Frances Albert Doughty. 


A ‘‘STAR ROUTE^^ CASE. 



IWT that Jack Duvall 


21 The men lounging in wooden arm-chairs tipped at various 
angles along the brief stretch of plank side- walk that fronted Dug- 
gan’s hotel turned at the question in desultory observance of a swiftly 
moving speck on the northern mesa, a mile away. “ Looks like it 
was,” one drowsily drawled, after due consideration. 

There was an interval of silence. The men who so comfortably 
killed time on Duggan’s side-walk were given to extreme deliberation 
in speech, as in all other things ; but finally another was roused to 
observe, addressing nobody in particular, “ He’s gone on Rose Duggan, 
sure,” to which came only the response of lazy, assenting laughter; 
while the speaker presently added, significantly glancing across the 
street where the proprietor of the one store, who was also the postmaster 
of the place, loitered in his open door, “ Well, she might do worse than 
take Duval.” 

Again there was a ruminant pause, while all eyes sleepily regarded 
the man over the way. ‘^But Jim Meeson’s well fixed,” somebody at 
length was moved to say, the tone implying a disposition to give the 
devil his due. 

“ But of all the mean, schemin’ cusses ” 

The gossip came to an abrupt stop as the stage wheeled around the 
house from the corral in the rear. Time had been when Duggan’s was 
the most important stage station between Denver and the Pappoose 
Creek mining district, — in the days of the boom, when the great 
Concord coaches had been wont to drive up by twos and threes, and 
sometimes even more, to unload their hordes of hungry passengers at 
the little hostelry ; but with the advent of the railroad, callously 
passing by Duggan’s some five miles to the eastward, the place had 
fallen to swift decadence. Now only the hotel, shorn of its glory, the 
general store, which also served as the post-office for the region round, 
and a blacksmith-shop, showed any signs of life, while the stage-line 
had dwindled to the daily appearance of an old spring wagon drawn 
by a pair of mules. 


A ‘^STAJi ROUTE'^ CASE. 


695 


The driver, wiping his mouth with an air which told of a good 
supper, came out now to mount his seat, with a joking word for the 
watching idlers, as he wheeled across the street for the mail-pouch, 
which the postmaster stood waiting to throw into the wagon. 

Bill Huntoon’s goin^ to stay over,^’ somebody observed, the tone 
implying discovery. 

“ What’s he up for another demanded, languidly, as if for his 
part he gave it up. 

Buy in’ bosses, I heard him tellin’ Duggan,” responded one, proud 
of being able to impart information. Though what he’s a-wantin’ 
bosses for, when he can keep the stage goin’ with a pair of mules, is 
more’n I know. For that matter, I don’t see what he’s runnin’ the 
stage for these times anyway ; don’t have a passenger nor a pound of 
freight once in a dog’s age.” 

Oh, he’s jest sockin’ it to the government for carryin’ that mail. 
Bill Huntoon knows what he’s about, you bet,” quoth another, in canny 
confidence. But jest look at Jim Meeson. He’s caught sight of 
Jack Duval, ’n’ he looks as though he was tastin’ picra. Well, Rose 
is a pretty girl ” 

Somethin’ of a contrast to her step-maw,” put in somebody else, 
slyly, whereat the company again joined in lazy laughter, although 
now with evident signs of uneasiness in the glances cast toward the 
open windows behind. Not a man among them but stood in awe of 
the virago temper of the landlady at Duggan’s ; and when a moment 
later a heavy step accompanied by a swish of skirts was heard ap- 
proaching the door, one suddenly remembered that it was his supper- 
time, and another that his stock should be ’tended to, and with one 
accord they all shuffled away down the dusty road, just as Jack Duval 
rode in at the corral gate. 

He was a handsome young fellow, wearing the leather chaparajos 
and soft felt hat rakishly up- tilted of the typical cowboy ; but if the 
court which daily convened on Duggan’s side-walk had been asked to 
settle Jack’s occupation, they would have mentioned cattle but inci- 
dentally. Old man Duval, as he was known, had indeed a consider- 
able ranch which he had taken up over in the shadow of the foot-hills, 
where a few head of stock ran wild and increased as Heaven permitted ; 
but the old man gave his time mostly to lazy enjoyment of hunting 
and fishing, while the son evinced a disposition to follow in the father’s 
footsteps. Nobody had anything to say against the family but this, 
that they were trifling and shiftless, Mrs. Duval coming in for rather 
more condemnation than her husband in this respect, although in 
Jack’s case — for everybody liked the lad — there were always plenty of 
excuses offered on the ground of his bringing up. What could you 
expect ?” people said, comprehensively. 

The boy threw himself from the horse, his dark face alight as he 
caught sight of a girl standing in the open kitchen door. 

Oh, it’s you, is it?” she cried, in coquettish affectation of surprise, 
as he came near her. We haven’t seen you for so long I didn’t know 
but you’d got lost.” 

‘‘ I’ve been fishin’ with dad,” the boy explained, his smile broaden- 


696 


A ^^STAR ROUTE” CASE. 


ing for the mere joy of looking at her. Trout are worth fifty cents 
a pound in Denver now, and they’ll take all we’ll bring in.” 

Which won’t be enough to hurt,” the girl saucily retorted, 
though her glance wavered a little and her pretty face grew rosier 
under the fire of his eager eyes. You can fish for fun ; but when 
it comes to making money out of it, it’s work, and that’s a different 
thing.” 

I can work if I take a notion to,” the lad protested, in quick 
defence, though he was laughing at the thrust. It seemed to him that 
with Rose he must always be laughing, everything she said and did 
was so exquisitely delightful to him. 

Ah, if you take a notion !” she repeated, with merry irony. 

I’ll tell you one thing I’ve got a notion to do. Rose Duggan,” he 
impetuously exclaimed. ‘‘I’ve got a notion that I’m going to marry 
you some day. What do you think of that?” 

“ Well, if you think I’m going to take up with you !” And Rose 
tossed her pretty head in gay ridicule of the idea. “And I’d like to 
kno\7 how you’d take care of a wife, — you without money enough to 
buy an A tent to set up housekeeping in.” 

Jack’s sunburned face flushed painfully under the blunt truth, but 
there was no sign of resentment as he humbly urged, “ But you know 
I like you, Rosie; I’ve told you so more’n a thousand times. And I’d 
work for you ” 

“ I think I see you !” laughed the girl, as she vanished in response 
to a peremptory call from within. 

With an inarticulate exclamation that almost ended in a sob, the 
boy turned back to his horse. “ Oh, she must have me ! — she 
must!” he muttered, under his breath. “She thinks I’m no good; 
but I’ll show her ! I’ll work — I’ll do anything to get money for 
her.” 

But his face hardened to a mask of wooden impenetrability as a 
step came around the house. It was Hun toon, the great man of the 
stage company, whose gray eyes shiftily searched the place to be sure 
nobody else was there before he gave the boy careless greeting. 

“You got my note, then,” he tentatively observed, feeling in a 
pocket for a couple of cigars, one of which he offered to Jack. He 
waited until these were lighted and each had enjoyed a luxurious 
whiff or two before he added, “ Fact is, we’ve got a little job for 
you.” 

“Yes?” Jack’s spirits rose as his thoughts ranged from the head 
of a mountain sheep to the skin of a silver-tip bear. If such trophies 
as these were wanted, he was determined that he should be paid a good 
price for them. It would all be for Rose now. 

“ Yes,” Huntoon went on, deliberately, after another cautious sur- 
vey, which included a peep into the barn behind ; “ we think you are 
the man for us, and if you think so too — well, you’ll get good pay for 
an easy job. In fact, it’s nothing but just to hold up the stage one of 
these nights.” 

“ Hold up — the stage !” gasped the boy, questioning the reliability 
of his ears. 


A ^^STAR ROUTED' CASE. 


697 


Exactly/^ Huntoon rejoined. The long and short of it is, the 
railroad hoodooed the stage business. WeVe been running at a loss for 
over a year now. We have no passengers, no freight : everything goes 
by the railroad.’^ 

Yes,^^ Jack assented, bewilderedly. 

And of course the mail ought to go that way too, but the govern- 
ment is simply a pack of asses. Our contract was for five years, and 
weVe got two more to run ; and though we have done everything to 
make the situation clear to the department at Washington, they seem 
bound to keep us going as long as weVe a leg to stand on. WeVe 
tried petitions and weVe tried arguments ; it would be twice as con- 
venient for the public to get the mail by train, as a blind man might 
see; but those fools at Washington just promise to look into the 
matter, and take it out promising. Now we^re going to try persuasion 
of another stripe. We^re going to have the stage held up and the 
mail taken. If one time won’t do, it will just naturally keep on 
happening till the authorities wake to the fact that this line ain’t safe 
for their precious mail. See ?” 

Duval thought he did, grinning appreciatively at what appeared 
to him like rather a good joke at the expense of the authorities. 

You just want me to make believe hold it up,” he said, compre- 
hensively. 

That’s the game ; though you want to make a good job of it, so 
they will have a straight story to tell. There’ll be a couple of fellows 
on the back seat for witnesses, and of course the driver will be onto the 
racket and make you no trouble. You’ll never earn a hundred dollars 
any easier.” 

A hundred dollars !” repeated the boy, with a gasp. His wildest 
dreams had never compassed the actual possession of so much money 
as this at once ; but he was not without caution, and, dazzled as he 
was, he dimly realized that the very munificence of the promised wage 
implied proportionate risk of some sort. But I’d hate to get caught 
at the job by anybody that didn’t understand it, — the sheritf, for in- 
stance,” he rather dubiously observed, when he had given the matter a 
moment’s thought. 

‘‘But why should you get caught?” Huntoon argued, impatiently. 
“ You ride down from your place in the dusk of the evening and wait, 
say, in the cottonwoods by Bear Creek. Who sees you? When you 
hear the stage coming, you slip a bit of black cambric over your face 
so they can all swear they didn’t get a look at you and wouldn’t know 
you again ; the driver halts and throws you the mail-sack when you 
sing out to him, and then you have nothing to do but to ride for all 
you’re worth. You will bring the letters to my office in Denver, — of 
course you will cut open the sack and throw it away, — I’ll remail the 
stuff so that nobody will be put to any sort of loss or trouble in the 
deal, — and you will be a hundred dollars richer.” 

“ It don’t seem like I was taking much risk,” rejoined the boy, 
slowly, the tone saying that none the less he would prefer to earn the 
money in some other way ; but just then Rose passed by one of the 
kitchen windows, pausing an instant to give him a fascinating glimpse 


698 


A ^^STAR ROUTE CASE. 


of red lips coquettislily smiling and eyes whose bright glances might 
mean anything. Jack caught his breath sharply, a glow coming into 
his dark face. ^^V\\ take the job.’^ 

‘^All right,” returned Huntoon, looking satisfied. Could you 
make it to-morrow night.” 

If you say so.” 

‘‘ The sooner the quicker, as the saying is. And of course mum^s 
the word. Won’t do to have any funny business like this getting out, 
you know, — especially among the women-folks.” The sharp gray 
eyes had not been blind to that look at the kitchen window, but the 
expression on the boy’s face was satisfactory as he tersely responded, 
You bet.” 

There was a little more discussion as to details, and the pair parted, 
Huntoon observing, in a tone of complacent confidence, “ Oh, it will 
all go as easy as rolling oif a log, sure. You’ll never pick up a hundred 
dollars as easy again, Duval.” 

But the unexpected happened, and Huntoon’s little comedy was 
turned to tragedy. So rarely in those days did passengers patronize 
the stage line that the conspirators in the plot had scarcely thought 
to figure on such remote contingency ; but on the night in question the 
postmaster at Duggan’s was called to Denver, and, ‘‘just for a change,” 
as he explained to the driver, decided to go by stage. And he it was 
who, when the amateur bandit rode out from the shadow of the trees, 
crying with gay bravado, “Hands up!” and all the others appeared 
more or less paralyzed with fright, displayed a courage as dauntless as 
it was undesired. 

The driver, with an air of hardly knowing what he did, at the first 
word had swiftly tossed the mail-pouch to the masked adventurer, 
who thereupon wheeled in swift retreat ; but Meeson already had him 
covered with a six-shooter, his aim so sure that, but for what seemed 
an accidental movement on the part of one of the others, the career of 
Jack Duval had been cut short then and there. 

“ I winged him, though !” he exclaimed, with a fierce oath, as, 
freeing himself of the driver’s leaning weight, he sent another shot 
after the rider. “And if it hadn’t been for you, you chuckle-headed 
idiots, tumbling all over me, I’d have had him as full of holes as a 
colander. But it don’t matter : the government will take care of him 
now.” 

“ The gov’ment’s got to ketch ’im fust,” surlily retorted the driver, 
whipping up his horses. 

“Yes; and it would be pretty hard to identify him, I reckon,” 
nervously put in one of the passengers on the back seat. “ I must 
say that I was so rattled ” 

“ So was I,” quickly declared his companion. “ I don’t believe I’d 
know him again from a side of sole-leather.” 

“But I’d know him,” cried Meeson, a note of cruel triumph in his 
short, grating laugh. “I know Jack Duval’s horse, and, even with a 
black rag over his face, I’d swear to Jack Duval anywhere ; while, 
more than that, he’s got the bullet of a ‘ 45’ in his shoulder now to 
convict him.” 


A ‘‘STAR ROUTE^^ CASE. 


699 


And so it proved. Money and influence, whose source the public 
scarce could guess, were generously used in Jack’s behalf ; the great 
lawyer who came forward to defend him coached the boy carefully in 
his part; three of the witnesses for the government absolutely refused 
to recognize in him the stage hold-up ; every possible effort was put 
forth to prove an alibi, but in vain. Nothing availed against Meeson’s 
unswerving testimony, backed by such damning evidence as the flesh- 
wound which the lad carried in one arm. In consideration of his 
youth and previous good record, he was given the minimum sentence, 
but even then, when he realized that five years of prison life lay before 
him, it was as though he faced an eternity of hell. He was fairly 
crazed by the horror of it. 

‘‘God knows I’m sorry, Duval,” Huntoon exclaimed, pitifully 
wringing the boy’s limp hand when he came to see him in his cell, 
after the trial was over. “We did everything we could, but it was no 
use. And you stood by us like a brick, too. We shan’t forget it.” 

“The lawyer told me I wasn’t going to help myself any by giving 
you away,” the prisoner returned, sullenly, turning his face away as 
though the mere sight of the visitor was hateful to him. 

“ No ; there was nothing for you to do but to stand pat on your 
hand ; and you did it like a man. And when you get out of this 
scrape, you’ll find friends ready to do what they can to make it right 
with you. You’ll make more than a hundred dollars out of it in the 
long run, I promise you, Duval.” But he drew back in alarm at the 
expression of the face that was turned upon him. 

“ Yes ; I’ve made more than a hundred dollars out of it, — I’ve 
made hell !” the boy retorted, fiercely. “ And you can never make it 
right with me on earth : you know it. You’ve let them prove it 
against me, and now if I should tell the truth, who would believe me? 
I’m going to jail ; and when I come out — oh, God ! — what will I be? 
Nothing but a jailbird to the end of my days! Who would ever take 
up with me? What chance will I ever have again? And you stand 
there talking about making it right with me !” 

“I know it’s tough, — devilish tough,” Huntoon hoarsely rejoined, 
finding a curious difficulty in speaking at all. Even in matters of 
business the man was not wholly heartless, and the circumstances of 
this case had greatly preyed upon his feelings. At the moment he felt 
that he could almost tell the truth to save the lad, — if it would save 
him. “But I don’t know what we can do. If we should come out 
with the facts, it wouldn’t help you : it would only get us all in the 
same boat,” he protested. “ Lord knows I’m sorry we went into it, 
but ” 

Jack Duval was in no mood to listen to excuses or explanations 
now. “Mr. Huntoon, I think you’d better go,” he quietly inter- 
rupted, his sinewy brown hands clinching each other as though finding 
a difficulty in holding themselves still. “If you don’t, I’m afraid 
you’ll get hurt.” 

And Huntoon went, feeling strangely chastened and disquieted. 

It was something that the undertaking succeeded in its main pur- 
pose, the carrying of the Denver and Pappoose Creek mail being 


700 


A ^^STAR ROUTE'' CASE. 


shortly afterward transferred to the railroad ; but even then Huntoon^s 
spirit was scarcely satisfied. As he more than once expressed himself 
to his partner, he always felt as though the Post-Office Department, 
in pure cussedness, had forced them to measures whereby the con- 
cession had cost altogether too dear. 

The old stage station had changed but little in outward showing, 
when one day a man made his way slowly along the bank of the creek, 
intently regarding its paltry assemblage of buildings. Worn, shabby, 
mean to the point of pathos, the place looked in the brilliant summer 
sunshine, but it was his w’orld, the tribunal before whose judgment his 
spirit sank to earth. He had left his horse tied to a cottonwood up the 
creek and trudged for miles rather than risk encountering the glances 
which he fancied must fall upon him should he venture to ride down 
the dusty street before Duggan^s door. 

One new house there was, set a little back from the road beside the 
store, where the sign, J. Meeson,’^ showed but a shade more dingy 
and weather-beaten than it had been five years before. Here was evi- 
dently the postmasters home; and on this the loiterer’s eyes were 
chiefly fixed as he went, passing on until he had reached a point just 
below the village. The soil thereabouts was not favorable to the dig- 
ging of wells, two or three foot-paths leading to the creek telling in 
what primitive fashion the water-supply of the place was obtained ; 
and by one of these paths the man finally seated himself on the ground, 
half hidden behind a growth of low willows, through which his eyes 
sought the back of the Meeson house with patient persistence. 

He had been waiting there for more than an hour when a woman 
came out of the house carrying a pail, while by her side toddled a 
child clutching at her skirts. The man caught his breath, his teeth 
closing hard on his under lip, but he still sat motionless until the 
woman, not perceiving him until she was standing by his side, started 
back with a cry of alarm. Jack — you ?” she gasped, unbelievingly, 
her face turning white, then red, as she stared at him. 

^‘Yes; it is I,” he answered, quietly. I wanted to see you.” 
But it was at the child he was looking, a tiny rose-bud slip of a girl, 
her small face marvellously like the dainty Rose of five years ago. 
The mother was different, he saw, as his eyes came back to her; she 
was thinner and paler and older. Plainly she had suffered ; but, 
although he did not try to analyze all the subtle changes he saw in the 
faded face, he dimly felt that its womanly sweetness appealed more to 
his homage than the old girlish beauty. I wanted you to know about 
the hold-up,” he slowly explained. I wanted you to know that I 
was not really guilty, Rose.” 

I know. Jack,” she returned, gently, her eyes alight with pity as 
she looked at him. He too was greatly changed. His face was gaunt 
and sallow, as though it had starved for God’s sunlight, with lines 
about the mouth and eyes that told of bitter f)ain; yet in the first 
glance she had seen that the man in him had developed beyond the 
rough promise of his boyhood. There was an intelligence, a refine- 
ment about the face which her woman’s eyes could not fail to recognize 
with instinctive deference. In girlish arrogance she had looked down 


A ^^STAR ROUTE'’ CASE. 


701 


upon the boy ; but as she looked at the man, her spirit gave him 
place above her. ‘‘ I know. He told me once when he had been 
drinking. He had sneaked around behind the barn that day, think- 
ing to spy upon you and me, and he heard Mr. Huntoon and you 
talking.^^ 

‘‘ And he went on the stage that night merely for the chance to 
finish me off with a bullet; and when that failed, he did it the other 
way,^^ cried Duval, fiercely. ^^Oh, I knew it was so all the time. 
And you could take up with such a miserable, low-lived dog as that 
Don’t you suppose I’ve been punished almost enough. Jack ?” she 
murmured, with a quivering lip, her eyes upon the ground. 

“ I heard that he abused you,” he went on, grimly. And if I’d 
ever hesitated before about what I owed him, that would have settled 
it. The chaplain was a good friend of mine. He tried to make me 
feel it was providential, my getting into prison. Perhaps it was, look- 
ing at it some ways. He lent me books and helped me along, and I 
got something of an education, which I probably never would have 
had if I had stayed at home; and I learned a trade besides, — two of 
them, in fact : I can keep a set of books and make shoes.” He paid 
tribute to his abilities with a laugh of exceeding bitterness. I ought 
to feel that I have been really very fortunate : don’t you think so? 
But what I owe your husband — well, I have my own way of figuring 
that. When my time was up, the chaplain found me a place where 
I could go to work and do well, where I was not known ; but I said 
no, I had work to do at home. And Mr. Huntoon was ready with 
another job for me in Denver; but I told him the same thing. And 
do you know what that work is, Rose? Do you want me to tell 
you?” His black eyes gleamed with hatred. ^^I’m going to shoot 
that precious husband of yours on sight ; and you may tell him so if 
you like.” 

The woman shrank back, surprise and horror on her face. Oh, 
Jack, don’t !” she entreated. Don’t you know ” 

Do you mean to tell me that you love him ?” he cried, with some- 
thing in his mad outburst of laughter that made her draw back still 
farther from him. Must I let him go for that? That would be a 
reason !” 

Haven’t they told you about him ?” she faltered, with a frightened 

look. 

They told me that you had married him, and that he drank and 
ill-treated you. My father wrote that ; and when I answered I told 
him never again to mention the villain in any letter to me. It almost 
drove me crazy, hearing such things and being there like that, tied 
hand and foot. And since I got home last night, they have been good 
enough to spare me the mention of his name. But what should they 
have told me. Rose? Has he been getting himself in prison too?” 
interjecting a sharp, mirthless laugh for the idea. That would be 
worth hearing; but I have no hope of it. The devil cares for his 
own.” 

His prison is — a grave,” the woman returned, solemnly. He is 
dead.” 


702 


A ^‘STAR ROUTE CASE. 


Jack Duval stared at her in bewilderment for a moment. It isn’t 
so/’ he harshly exclaimed. You are saying it to get me away, to 
save him. But you can’t fool me that way. I know it isn’t so.” 

He died almost a year ago,” she slowly declared, her voice more 
low as she glanced at the child. He was not kind to me, and I could 
not pretend that I was sorry when he went; and now — ” the voice 
faltered for an instant, and she turned her face away, “ perhaps it is an 
awful thing to say, yet now — if he had to go, I’m glad it happened 
before you got home. Jack. I’m glad you can’t be a murderer.” 

‘^I suppose I ought to be glad too,” he dully answered her; but 
he had no sense of gladness : he only felt dazed and strange, as though 
but half awake from a long night of hideous dreaming. “Probably 
in God’s sight I am about as guilty, though, as if I had done it,” he 
gloomily added, after a little, rather wondering at the tears she was 
weakly wiping from her eyes. 

“Oh, no; God understands,” she answered him, quickly; and 
never could Rose have looked more radiantly lovely than at this 
moment, when all her woman’s soul looked out of the tear-blurred 
eyes in impulse of tender comforting. “ He knows you couldn’t be 
blamed for feeling hard.” 

“And don’t you blame me. Rose?” 

“How could I? Yet I don’t believe, when it came to the point, 
that you ever could have done it. Jack : I know you better.” 

The child had been looking up with curious eyes, and now, seeming 
at last to have settled in her small mind the cause of the tears which 
had called a sympathetic quiver to her own red lip, she suddenly 
turned upon the stranger indignantly. “ Go ’way, naughty man ! 
Make my mamma c’y!” she cried, one tiny fist raised in doughty 
defiance. “ Go ’way !” 

“ Oh, no, darling ; you must not drive him away,” the mother pro- 
tested, laughing tremulously as she stooped to take the child in her 
arms. “ He is not bad, — not half so bad as he thinks he is. And he 
is mamma’s friend, her dear old friend.” 

“I suppose I’d better be going, just the same,” Jack awkwardly 
observed, taking a step uncertainly up the path. 

“But when shall I see you again?” cried the little widow, 
anxiously. 

“ Do you want to see me again ?” he asked, keenly studying her 
face. “ Do you know what the neighbors will say if they see me— r 
a jailbird — coming to your house?” 

“ What do I care what they say ?” she flashed back. 

Jack’s face was suddenly aglow with such light of youth and hope 
that it almost seemed as if the boy lover of the old days stood beside 
her. “ And you know what it must mean if I come to see you, 
Rose?” 

“ I — suppose so.” Something of the old-time coquetry sounded 
in the little laugh as she wiped away a couple of belated tears against 
the baby’s shoulder. “ And perhaps, Jack, you would not mind carry- 
ing that pail of water up to the house now.” 


Mary E. Stickney. 


THE BEGINNINGS OF LIBERTY IN NEW YORK. 


703 


THE BEGINNINGS OF LIBERTY IN NEW YORK. 

M r. SYDNEY G. FISHER’S article called Are American In- 
stitutions of Dutch Origin ?” published in the January number 
of this magazine, treats in an interesting way of the very interesting 
question raised in Douglas Campbell’s book, The Puritan in Eng- 
land, Holland, and America.” I have no desire to comment upon 
its main argument, its chief propositions. But no New-Yorker who 
knows anything of the early history of his town can contentedly read 
its concluding page. This deals with the origin of municipal liberties 
and the genesis of the idea of popular freedom” in New Netherland. 
And it excites regret that Mr. Fisher had not familiarized himself as 
thoroughly with the records of our town as he has, apparently, with 
those of New England. It is a pity that he should follow the lead of 
Bancroft, who wrote the earlier volumes of his “ History” before our 
Holland Documents” had been translated and published. It is a 
pity that he did not consult these Documents, or, at least, the local 
histories of O’Callaghan and Brodhead. And his mistakes are all the 
more to be deplored because so many other writers have made them, 
because the story of New Amsterdam is so persistently misrepresent, 
because New York is only just awakening to the fact that its tale has 
been mistold by almost every historian whose books are familiar to 
the general public. 

The characteristic first fact about New Netherland is that it was 
not planted by the Dutch government, nor by immigrants desiring to 
free themselves from distressing home conditions, material, political, or 
religious. It was the only American colony planted wholly and solely 
for the sake of the direct profit that might thereby accrue to the 
motherland. Therefore it did not even attempt at first to rule itself 
in any degree. And it was not ruled by the government of its mother- 
land. New Netherland was owned and was ruled by the Dutch West 
India Company, and it was populated by persons sent out by this Com- 
pany, or by those who accepted this Company as their overlord. Of 
course certain rights of oversight and interference were reserved to the 
States-General of Holland. But the West India Company always 
bitterly opposed any action on their part; and its agents — the pro- 
vincial governors whom it sent out — often denied the people’s con- 
stantly asserted right of appeal. The Company wished to rule, and 
at first it did rule, as an autocratic sovereign ; and its agents, especially 
Governors Kieft and Stuyvesant, were more than willing to adopt this 
attitude, keeping all judicial as well as legislative and executive powers 
in their own hands, or sharing them with the members of a small 
council appointed by themselves or by the West India Company. 

This was why the town of New Amsterdam was not self-governing 
until, after a ten years’ struggle, beginning in 1642, it induced the 
Dutch government to champion its cause, and forced the West India 
Company to a partial surrender of its autocratic privileges. But after 


704 


THE BEGINNINGS OF LIBERTY IN NEW YORK. 


1652 it did have a large measure of local self-government; and in 
1664, the very year in which the English arrived, the whole province 
of New Netherland was allowed a representative assembly. It is in- 
accurate to say, as Mr. Fisher says, that representative government 
was not established’^ in Dutch New York and could not be estab- 
lished, although the people rebelled and clamored for it.” Moreover, 
all his comments upon New Netherland’s disenfranchised early con- 
dition are misleading, because he does not mention the determining 
fact that it was owned and ruled by the West India Company. 

He truly says that municipal liberties were first granted, not to 
New^ Amsterdam itself, but to some of the smaller villages on Long 
Island, chiefly peopled by English folk. But three years before any 
of these towns w^as allowed local self-government. Governor Kieft, 
distracted by Indian troubles of his own provoking and by the hostile 
mood of his burghers, had permitted them to select a representative 
body called the Twelve Men. And at once these Twelve Men had 
asked for a right enjoyed by the meanest village in fatherland,” — 
the right to manage its local affairs through a board of magistrates 
selected by the people. Soon after Kieft had dissolved this body 
another representative body, called the Eight Men, was appointed. 
Petitioning the States-General as well as the West India Company for 
help in the distressed condition to which Kieft’s Indian war had reduced 
Manhattan, the Eight Men declared that it would be impossible ever to 
settle and develop the country until the people should be allowed to 
elect from among themselves a Bailiff, or Schout, and SchepenSy who 
will be empowered to send their deputies and give their votes on public 
affairs with the Director and Council.” 

Unquestionably these demands prepared the way for the granting 
of local privileges. And. some degree of local self-government was 
soon absolutely essential in outlying towns, while the capital, where 
the autocratic Governor lived and his courts were held, could more 
easily be ruled without them. Therefore civic rights were granted on 
Long Island, while New Amsterdam was still denied them. And so 
it can be at the most only partially true that they were granted, in Mr. 
Fisher’s words, to pacify” the English residents and to avoid offence 
to New England.” 

Dnring ten years after the first appeal in 1642 the desire for 
municipal freedom, as the only possible foundation for peace, progress, 
and contentment, never dropped out of the minds of the men of New 
Amsterdam. Stuyvesant, who arrived in 1647, was very soon forced 
to appoint a new representative body, called the Nine Men, for the 
people again refused, as they had done in the time of Kieft, to be 
directly taxed without their own consent. And in 1649 the Nine Men, 
with the people’s enthusiastic support, drew up a Petition of the Com- 
monalty of New Netherland and a longer explanatory paper called the 
Remonstrance of New Netherland. These demanded help for the 
province, not from the West India Company, but directly and insist- 
ently from the States-General. The burdensome and unjust govern- 
ment of the Company was their main matter of complaint, and the 
main things they asked for were the protection of the States-General 


THE BEGINNINGS OF LIBERTY IN NEW YORK. 


705 


and suitable burgher government such as your High Mightinesses 
shall consider adapted to this Province, and somewhat resembling the 
laudable government of our fatherland.” For more than three years 
New Amsterdam’s battle for emancipation was fought in Holland by 
the delegates who carried these papers, with the historian Van der 
Donck at their head, against the fiercest opposition from the West 
India Company. In April, 1652, the Company was forced to a partial 
surrender; and in February, 1653, burgher government was actually 
established in New Amsterdam. 

Stuyvesant, from the first to the last an almost frantic opponent 
of popular freedom in every shape, tried to nullify as far as he could 
the grudging concessions of his employers. They had decreed that 
his people should elect their own burgomasters, schout, and schepens. 
But he took these appointments into his own hands, and kept them 
there until his people forced him to give them up. 

These were among the reasons why renewed remonstrances and 
petitions were sent to Holland a few months later, asking for a larger 
measure of freedom. It was then — not when the people clamored 
for representative government,” but when they clamored for its en- 
largement — that Stuyvesant referred to an English influence. Ban- 
croft incorrectly quotes the words that he then employed. And Mr. 
Fisher misquotes Bancroft. He writes that Stuyvesant said, Will 
you set your names to the visionary notions of the New England 
menf^ What Bancroft writes is, Will you set your names to the 
visionary notions of the New England man? Is no one of the 
Netherlands’ nation able to draft your petition ?” But while Stuyve- 
sant spoke of a single man only, he used the term Englishman,” — 
not New England man.” The reference was not to any general influ- 
ence, but merely to George Baxter, long the official English secretary 
of the province, who had been asked to draw up the petition of the 
Dutch and English remonstrants. In the following lines Mr. Fisher’s 
statement that Stuyvesant was “ supported in his rebuke by the Dutch 
West India Company, which declared that the demand for representa- 
tion was ^contrary to the maxims of every enlightened government,’” 
is again misleading. For he does not explain that the Company was 
necessarily hostile to its colonists’ wish for liberty, nor, on the other 
hand, that it had already granted it in some degree. 

But most unfortunate, because re-echoing mistakes most often made 
by popular writers, are Mr. Fisher’s declarations that the Dutch in 
New York learned all that they knew of the self-government of towns 
from the New-Englanders,” that so far as they learned any lessons 
at all in liberty they came from the same source,” and that when the 
English conquerors arrived the Dutch were planning to copy English 
liberty, and were listening complacently to proposals of submitting 
themselves to English jurisdiction.” ‘‘All this,” Mr. Fisher adds, “is 
commonplace New York history.” So it is, alas ! Or so it has been, 
as regards the popular mind and the popular historian, until very recent 
years. None the less it is all untrue. 

When the Twelve Men first asked for local liberties in 1642, the 
“large emigrations from Connecticut,” which Bancroft celebrates as 
Yol. LIX.— 45 


706 


THE BEGINNINGS OF LIBERTY IN NEW YORK. 


the source of New Netherland’s aspirations toward freedom, had only 
just begun. And they were emigrations from Massachusetts rather 
than from Connecticut, — emigrations to escape from the intolerable 
government^’ of the Bay colony. In 1644 some of the immigrants to 
Long Island got local liberties, probably, as has been said, but certainly 
not altogether, because, as Englishmen, they asked for them. When 
the men of Manhattan itself contemplated asking for them in their 
Bemonstrance of 1649, they naturally expected help from these Eng- 
lish. But they did not get it. They got nothing but hindrance. 
The Long Island English quickly and decidedly drew aloof from the 
popular movement. And during the years of struggle that followed 
they were the only respectable supporters that Stuyvesant had, the 
only citizens of New Netherland who professed themselves content 
with the West India Company’s rule. Afterward, joining the Dutch, 
they opposed Stuyvesant and the Company. But the actual battle for 
municipal liberty was fought by the Dutch alone and gained by them 
alone. One Englishman was, indeed, numbered among the Nine Men, 
— Thomas Hall. But he had been a refugee servant from Virginia, 
and he was the only one of his blood who stood boldly by the side of 
his adopted brethren. 

The battle was altogether Dutch. And so were the ideas that in- 
spired it, and the results when they were gained. In the Additional 
Observations attached to the Petition of 1649 New England’s methods 
of government are described with high praise, but merely to demon- 
strate the truth that colonies flourish best, that all towns flourish best, 
when they govern themselves. The men of New Amsterdam do not 
confess indebtedness to the men of New England for a first perception 
of this truth. Nor do they ask for municipal privileges moulded after 
New England patterns. Under the laudable government” of their 
own fatherland they had learned the worth of such rights, — from the 
administrative methods first established in those feudal towns which, 
owned by no personal overlord, held directly from the central power. 
After these patterns they desired New Amsterdam’s liberties to be 
framed. And in this shape they eventually got them. Their inspira- 
tion did not come from England or from New England. And there 
is small analogy between the early New England town governments 
and that government by burgomasters, schout, and schepens which old 
Amsterdam and New Amsterdam both knew. 

Finally, it is an unfounded charge that the men of New Nether- 
land listened ^^complacently to proposals of submitting themselves to 
English jurisdiction.” When the aggressive New-Englanders, after 
flooding the Connecticut country and settling in the unoccupied eastern 
parts of Long Island, pushed nearer and nearer to Manhattan, and 
succeeded in getting control of some of the villages in the western 
part, some of the Dutch residents of these villages submitted quietly 
to their rule. What else could they do, their province being so piti- 
fully weak and the English so overwhelmingly strong? And when 
the Duke of York’s ships arrived oflP Manhattan, the Dutch burghers 
compelled the fiery Stuyvesant to a quiet surrender. But any other 
course would have been helpless, hopeless folly. The facts of this 


MV PENNSYLVANIAN. 


707 


surrender are clearly remembered, although the reasons for them are 
persistently misrepresented. But it is less well remembered that, nine 
years later, there was another and equally quiet surrender of Man- 
hattan by the English to the Dutch. And in this case the reasons 
were less compelling, for the town was then much stronger than in 
Stuyvesant^s day. 

Probably the regret of the Dutch at the advent of the English 
flag would have been still deeper if they had been contented with their 
actual rulers, — if the West India Company had ceased to rule them, 
even in part, or had learned to rule them better. Nevertheless it was 
deep. The transfer was accepted as an inevitable calamity, an unpre- 
ventable outrage. It had often been predicted. For many years the 
remonstrances and petitions of the people of the province had been 
full of outcries with regard to the probability that the English would 
‘‘ seize it for themselves,^^ that it would ‘‘ lose even the name of New 
Netherland,^’ and that no Dutchman would have anything to say 
there.^^ But this probability was regarded as the greatest possible 
danger that threatened the province. It was insisted upon as the 
strongest possible argument why the protection of the States-General 
should be substituted for that of the West India Company, and why 
the province should be allowed to develop sturdily upon the basis of 
self-government. Hatred for the New England aggressor who had 
wrested the Connecticut country and most of Long Island from New 
Netherland, and had tried to capture its Delaware regions also, tinges 
every page of the Dutch colonists^ many appeals to Holland. Com- 
placent’^ is the very last term that can rightly be applied to the fear 
of English conquest which had overshadowed them for thirty years, 
or to the stubborn resignation with which they saw their oft-repeated 
prophecies fulfilled. 

M. O. Van liensselaer. 


MY PENNSYLVANIAN. 

I HAD no particular fancy for the task to which I had been assigned. 

Still I was not minded to give it up. In the militar^life the duty 
of obedience is soon impressed upon one, and, moreover, I had become 
hardened to such riskful adventures. 

‘^You are so skilled in creeping to the edge of death and then 
creeping away again without giving Old Nick the chance to make a 
single snap at you,” said our colonel one day, that we will keep you 
for such dangerous but important duty.” 

Our colonel was always a man of discernment and tact. But, 
though I was full of pride at his words, my modesty compelled me to 
restrain the expression of it. It is true, some of my comrades charged 
that when I returned from the successful completion of such duties I 
was wont to assume a fine importance and to take privileges for which 
they would not dare to ask. But I submit that my conduct on those 


708 


MY PENNSYLVANIAN. 


occasions was no more than my services warranted. Is it not written 
in the greatest of all books that the laborer is worthy of his hire ? 
And who labors harder than the soldier, in particular when his govern- 
ment can neither put clothes upon his back nor food within his stomach 
and he must forage for himself? Not that the latter is wholly without 
spice or reward upon occasion. 

My mind was running upon these things rather too freely for the 
good of the business I had in hand, and the twig of an overlapping 
bush caught in my homespun tunic. It thrust itself in at a hole a 
British bullet had made not three weeks before. I was, in truth, very 
near the edge of death, to quote the coloneFs phrase, when that bullet 
warmed my skin, but not so near as I was when at Long Island we 
held back Howe’s whole force and saved our army from destruction. 
Jupiter, how the bullet that cut into my shoulder then stung me! I 
have always believed that it was a Hessian bullet, and because of it I 
have ever since cherished an exceeding great animosity against all 
Hessians. Moreover, the Hessians make most comfortable spoil, as 
King George clothes and arms them to an exceeding degree of excel- 
lency. 

I disentangled my tunic from the bush and crept forward again, 
bidding myself to be more cautious or ere long I would be swinging 
in a British noose, to the great gain of the British cause and the great 
loss of our own. To make my way silently but with speed through 
undergrowth was no difficult task for me. I have hunted the ’coon 
and the ’possum too many a night in the thick woods of the East- 
ern Shore when a boy to lose my skill as a man. And in truth the 
colonel gave me so much work of this character that I would have 
been compelled to recall my knowledge of wood-craft had I ever been 
in danger of losing it. 

Presently I saw ahead of me a little clump of bushes of an exceed- 
ing great degree of density. It occurred to me that I would act 
wisely to secrete myself in the clump and watch about me for a while. 
According to my calculations, and I am wont to be precise in such 
matters, I was very near the doubtful space between the lines of the 
two armies, the strip of region which both claimed and neither held. 
It behooved me, therefore, to be of exceeding caution and to look well 
around me. I slipped through the bushes, but not without difficulty, 
into the centre of the clump, and then, after I had bestowed myself 
with a fair degree of comfort and with my rifle across my knee, I 
found that I had, with my usual good judgment, secured a most 
admirable outlook. In front of me was a stretch of ground rather 
more free of undergrowth than the remainder of the forest seemed to 
be, and my view was better than I had anticipated. 

I sat there for some time looking about me to see some signs of the 
British. I have always been proud of my eyesight. In truth, it was 
good by nature, and had received such a degree of training for work 
like this that no gleam of red coat could appear even for a moment 
among those trees without my seeing it. 

I saw nothing but the trees, and heard nothing but the silence, — 
for you can hear the silence of the woods. I began to believe that the 


MY PENNSYLVANIAN. 709 

enemy was not as alert as I, — which, however, need cause wonder in 
the mind of no one. 

The time lengthened into a half-hour, and then I heard the faint 
sound of a trumpet. It came from the British lines, I knew, and it 
was very far away. In truth, it would not have been audible at all 
had not a smart breeze been blowing toward me. It is a very curious 
thing how sound rides the wind like drift carried on by the waves. 
On a clear night, with a strong wind blowing in the right direction, I 
have heard the sentinels exchanging the watchword in the British 
camp nearly a mile away. 

So far as I knew, there was nothing of significance in the blowing 
of the trumpet, but it was a very pretty sound. It has always pleased 
me to hear the distant notes of military music. The sound is martial, 
yet it strikes upon the ear as gently and sweetly as the falling of a 
rose-leaf. It moves me, and yet does not make a woman of me. In 
truth, I have always felt that I have a fine fancy and am of a some- 
what poetic turn. Had it not been for the troublesome character of 
the times, and had I been permitted to cultivate my gift — but pshaw ! 
the life of a soldier, cold and hungry as it often is, doubtless finds 
more clothes for the back and food for the stomach than the making 
of rhymes ever will. 

The trumpeter was playing a tune. But I thought nothing of that. 
The British were much given to playing defiant music when they lay 
near us, inasmuch as they were usually in far greater force and their 
arms and other equipment were of immense superiority to ours. But 
it was a diversion that they carried too far sometimes, for when they 
followed us through New York after the beating they gave us on 
Long Island all their trumpeters played a fox-hunting tune. Then 
we turned upon them and cut up their vanguard, which was a source 
of much mortification to Earl Howe and of a great uplifting of the 
spirits to us. 

The playing of the trumpet ceased, without leaving me in any 
measure the wiser, and after biding there a quarter of an hour longer 
I began to think it was time for me to bestir myself. My knees were 
getting stiff with crouching so long in a scarce-changed position, and, 
moreover, it did not become me to waste time. 

I had just swung my rifle around in preparation for the start, when 
I heard a noise among some bushes a small distance to my left. All 
my trained and professional instincts were at once upon the alert. I 
remained quite still, listening with that intentness which is necessary 
when one is engaged upon such dangerous and delicate business as 
mine. 

The noise, which sounded like the fluttering of a bird’s wing among 
the grass and leaves, continued for a half-minute perhaps. Then there 
was naught but silence. I concluded that the rustling was in truth 
made by a bird, but I am too cautious a man to rest content with mere 
surmises. Battles are not won by guess. Moreover, I had a reputa- 
tion to maintain. 

So I remained quite still, waiting for a repetition of the noise, 
if perchance there should be such repetition. Many minutes passed. 


710 


MY PENNSYLVANIAN. 


Few men would have had the patience to sit there as I did, but then 
the colonel had paid me the compliment of hinting that I was not an 
ordinary man. After a while my waiting was rewarded, for I heard 
again the sound, which was a mixture of a crackle and a rustle. But 
I was not able to make out the cause of it, for I could see nothing 
living. 

The sound continued, but instead of approaching me it moved 
away. I was not pleased thereat. I could not return to the camp 
and look my colonel honestly in the face unless I discovered the cause 
of that noise. There was naught for me to do but to pursue it. 

It had entered into my mind that my vexatious neighbor was a 
rattlesnake. I have a strong aversion to rattlesnakes, and it would 
give me great pleasure to crush this reptile with a stone or a stick. 
My hunter^s instinct, as well as curiosity and professional pride, was 
aroused. So I gathered my rifle up by my side. It is a trick that I 
have when scouting through underbrush. If you hold your rifle by 
your side parallel with your body and close to you, it becomes a part 
of you and therefore is not likely to become entangled in anything to 
your great discomfort and equal danger. 

I crept out of the bushes, and did it so well that I do not think I 
made a noise that could have been heard even by a rattlesnake. Just 
beyond me was a fallen tree, the trunk of which was half decayed. 
Yet it was so large that what was left must have lain a half-yard high 
on the ground. It was just such a place as a rattlesnake would love, 
and I said to myself, ^^Now, my fine reptile, I will find you soon 
enough, and smash your head off for annoying me when I am engaged 
in the transaction of an affair of high importance to the army and the 
patriot cause.’^ 

I now perceived that the sound came from beyond the tree-trunk. 
As I approached, it ceased, but I was confident the reptile was there, 
in all likelihood basking in the sun, which at that spot broke through 
the trees, imagining in his foolish pride that he was the king of all 
these woods. He would lose his crown and his head to boot, and that, 
too, mighty soon. 

I reached the log, and then, noiselessly rising up, peeped over. I 
saw no snake, but what I did see was a fine fat soldier, spread out on 
his face and stomach, and looking about him with all the wisdom of an 
old gray owl. I dropped back ; then I rose up again and took another 
look. I knew the man, upon the instant, for what he was. All that 
plumpness and girth of figure could belong to none but a Pennsyl- 
vanian. I also caught a glimpse of his fat Quakerish face, and nothing 
more was needed. 

There had always been a feud between us Marylanders and the 
Pennsylvanians; for the matter of that, the remainder of the army 
invariably took our part. The hungrier and thinner all the others 
grew, the fatter and more contented those Pennsylvanians looked. 
Where they got their provisions none of us could ever tell, but thin 
men were as scarce among the Pennsylvanians as fat men were among 
the remainder of us. And the Pennsylvanians — a plague on their 
Quakerish skins — made such pretensions to piety, too. I have never 


MF PENNSYLVANIAN. 711 

had any love for that kind of piety which keeps you from dividing 
the bread and meat in your knapsack with a half-starved comrade. 

What inflamed me the more was the presence of this lump of a 
Quaker scouting in my own particular bit of territory. Did he think 
to forestall me, who was so finely skilled in such affairs? Why should 
any officer send such an awkward body as that to do work which re- 
quired knowledge, foresight, and alertness of movement? The very 
proof of his unfitness for the task was evident in the fact that he lay 
there like a great fat turtle sprawled out, and entirely unconscious that 
I was present and watching every movement he made. 

He was dressed much as I was, in a homespun tunic and trousers, 
the ancient color of which had long since been destroyed by dirt and 
wear. He moved forward a foot or so from the log and looked about 
him. Then the right thing to do occurred to me. As I have said, I 
have no love for the Pennsylvanians, and this fellow in particular had 
thrust himself upon me in the most aggravating fashion. There he lay 
upon his stomach, and he offered such a noble opportunity for revenge 
that I could not resist it. 

I raised myself above the log until I could get a good swing for 
ray arms. Then, reversing my rifle, I grasped it with firm hands by 
the barrel. I paused a moment to see whether the Pennsylvanian 
suspected my presence, but the fat fool was so busy examining a 
cluster of trees that he never looked behind him. Then I swung the 
rifle two or three times around my head and brought the flat part 
of the stock down with great force upon the anatomy of the Pennsyl- 
vanian. 

There was a mighty spat, the splitting of cloth, and a yell of pain 
and surprise. Then the Pennsylvanian sprang to his feet, rubbing 
himself and looking wildly about him. But he saw nothing, for I had 
dropped noiselessly behind the tree-trunk. I could peep up at him, 
but he could not see me. He stared stupidly all around, swearing 
under his breath, as the Quaker militiamen mostly do, for their prin- 
ciples will not allow them to swear out loud. It was hard work for 
me to keep down any longer at the sight of his gruesome face. 

After a minute of this useless staring. Master Quaker seemed sud- 
denly to remember the business that he had come about, and that it 
was hardly wise on his part to stand there staring and screwing up his 
red face. So he dropped down behind the fallen tree, and in a few 
moments I heard him twisting about as if he were trying to look over 
the trunk and see what had smitten him with such suddenness and 
force. Then, still laughing to myself, I determined to give my fat 
Quaker another surprise. 

I began to thrust my own face up. I raised it very slowly, and 
just as my eyes reached the top of the log I saw a thatch of red hair 
appearing on the other side. More of his head came into view, and 
then in a moment a pair of astonished eyes was staring into mine 
across the log. 

Hello he exclaimed, in a startled way. 

Hello to you I replied, with an air of indignation. Is that 
any way to salute a gentleman, with your ‘ hello’ ?” 


712 


MV PENNSYLVANIAN. 


It’s a better way than you saluted me, I’m thiuking,” he said, 
ruefully. 

Oh, that was merely a friendly tap. I don’t see that it did any 
harm,” I replied, examining the stock of my gun with a finely critical 
air. 

But I fear that it has done harm to me,” he said, with the same 
rueful air, though he did not appear to be angry. Those Pennsylvania 
fellows never know when they are insulted. 

Are you scouting?” he asked. 

Yes,” I replied ; ‘^and you are too, I suppose?” 

A little,” he said, ‘‘ but it’s a slow business.” 

That depends upon a man’s gift for it,” said I, as I coolly seated 
myself upon the log. If he has the gift for it he can do it, and if 
he hasn’t he can’t, and that’s an end to it. Now, my friend, I don’t 
believe you have any gift for this business, and, to tell you the truth, 
your scouting days are over, at least for a long time.” 

Why ?” he asked, in mild surprise. 

I had shifted my rifle around until the muzzle covered him, and 
now I was ready to come to the kernel of my joke. 

Why, it’s just this,” I said, and with great difficulty I smothered 
my laughter and made my voice solemn. ^^You take me for an 
American, whereas I am an Englishman. Now, if your brain is 
bright enough to see the point readily, you must admit that you are 
my prisoner, and that never was a man taken more easily.” 

His jaw dropped, and he ejaculated, in the most stupid fashion. 
Your prisoner !” 

Yes,” I replied, and in my enjoyment I could not restrain a little 
chuckle this time; but be comforted, my good fellow. You Pennsyl- 
vania chaps haven’t much stomach for the fighting, and when you’re a 
prisoner you can’t fight, you know. There’s consolation for you in 
that. You can’t lose your life, and we won’t treat you badly.” 

That’s true,” he said, as if my words had entirely reconciled him 
to his situation. 

But a moment later I saw a light spring up in his eye, and he shook 
his head as if a thought had occurred to him. Then I knew that he 
was planning some trick, and I was on the watch for it. 

You have made a mistake, my friend,” he said. I am an 
Englishman too. You don’t want to make a prisoner of one of your 
own comrades, do you ?” 

But I was too old a hand to be deceived by a device of such trans- 
parency as that. 

Come, now,” I said. ‘^You Pennsylvanians — for I know your 
breed — are too clumsy to impose upon people with such tales. Why, 
your very tunic shows that you belong to the Pennsylvania line.” 

I pointed to his homespun garment. His face was red by nature, 
but it turned much redder. The man convicted himself 

You are right,” he said ; but don’t take me into the British lines. 
I would not like for it to be known that I was taken in such a manner 
as this. It might get back to my comrades.” 

Where else do you suj)pose I could take you ?” I asked, in a high 


MY PENNSYLVANIAN. 


713 


fashion. haven^t a private encampment of my own, in which I 
could keep you a prisoner. So you must even go with me into our lines. 
Now get along.’^ 

He did not make much more delay, but, very crestfallen of counte- 
nance, began to walk before me toward the encampment of the British 
army. I held my rifle under my arm in such convenient position that 
I could throw it to my shoulder on the notice of a moment. But I 
was far from the idea of doing such a thing. I merely intended to 
carry a good joke to the furthest point, and I anticipated no attempt to 
escape or device to annoy me on the part of the Pennsylvanian. He 
was too heavy and dull-witted to do aught but what I told him to do. 

I was sure that no one was near. My previous examination of the 
forest had convinced me of that fact, and hence my prisoner and I 
walked upright. 

You have not had much experience in scouting,’’ said I, thinking 
to console him a bit. 

‘‘ No,” he said. I haven’t made any attempt before, and I don’t 
seem to prosper in such pursuits.” 

I would advise you,” I said, warmly, to leave it alone. It 
requires a peculiar skill, gift I may call it, that is born in one, and 
cannot be acquired. Now I think that you Pennsylvanians do much 
better in the provision and supply department of the army. That is 
your place. You stay there, and leave the more important affairs, such 
as planning campaigns and executing delicate movements, to us.” 
think I will hereafter,” he said, regretfully. 

He seemed so much impressed by my excellent advice that my 
heart warmed to him as the heart of a teacher warms to his apt pupil. 
I was going to make some further remark of a consolatory nature, but 
just then we entered a place where the wood was denser, and as we 
curved around a hill we met three British soldiers. These fellows were 
in their uniform, red coats and all, of such a newness and goodness of 
texture that I was filled with envy, for I had not had a new uniform 
now for more than two years. 

Most men would have been stunned when placed in such a situa- 
tion, and I myself am even willing to confess to a feeling of dismay at 
first. But I saw that I must act with great fortitude and brazen the 
matter out, risking everything on my courage and happy chance. 

Hello, comrades,” I said, cheerily. “ I warn you against such 
incautious procedure. The rebels are thick about here, and if you are 
not wary you will walk into a nest of them.” 

Have you seen any of them ?” asked the foremost of the three 
soldiers, somewhat nervously. 

Seen them ?” I said, in most high and mighty accents. I 
should think I had. Not only have I seen them, but I have had 
further dealings with them.” 

My Pennsylvanian opened his mouth and was about to say some- 
thing, but instantly I was upon him with the utmost fury. 

Be silent, you damned rebel !” I shouted. If I hear you say a 
word I’ll smash your head with my gun-stock. Is it not enough for 
you to plunge into wicked rebellion against your lawful king, who prays 


714 


MY PENNSYLVANIAN. 


for your souFs welfare every night and morning of his life, without 
opening your mouth to preach sedition in the presence of loyal and 
devoted servants of His Majesty, such as I and these gentlemen here 

My eyes blazed with apparent wrath. The soldiers looked ap- 
provingly at me. How did you take him one of them asked. 

I was scouting in the woods back yonder,” I replied, and I 
surprised him crawling among the bushes, like the worm he is. I 
intend to take him into the camp, where an example can be made of 
him. He is a most unconscionable villain. From the very moment 
I took him he has been attempting to prate to me about the justice 
of his wicked and rebellious doctrines. Half a dozen times I have 
thought I would have to ram his teeth down his throat and gag him 
with them. Be silent, you rebel ! Do not defile the air with your 
seditious words.” 

I suppose they will hang him,” said one of the soldiers, looking 
at my Pennsylvanian. 

‘‘Hang him? of course they will hang him,” I replied; “and 
richly he deserves it, too. He is a spy. I took him within our lines. 
He will get his deserts, and that speedily, never fear.” 

The blockheads never for a moment suspected what I in truth 
was, my presence of mind and dash had imposed upon them to such an 
extent. 

“Well,” said one of them, enviously, “you have had luck, and 
will get a reward. I wish I was in your place.” 

“ It requires only skill and energy,” I said, grandly. “ If you 
will only go over there and beat through the woods in the most wary 
manner, you may have equal luck. But take care : those rebels know 
how to shoot.” 

I moved my hand to the left as I spoke, and they walked oflF in 
that direction, each giving me a friendly nod as he went away. 

I was struck with admiration at the success of my bold measures 
in rescuing myself from such a precarious position, and, prodding my 
Pennsylvanian with my gun-barrel, I told him to march on. It was 
evident now that we were dangerously near the enemy, and I intended 
to curve around to the right, in order that we might retrace our steps 
to the American encampment. 

“ You did that very cleverly,” said my Pennsylvanian, when we 
had plodded along a bit. 

The words showed more perception than I thought him capable of, 
and he began to rise in my esteem. 

“ It was not half bad,” I said, carelessly ; “ but I have been in 
much worse fixes than that. All it requires is a little courage and 
presence of mind. But I guess this joke has gone far enough. We 
had better stop it, as we are close to the British lines.” 

“ I think so too,” he said. “ There is an outpost just over the hill 
there.” 

“ We won’t visit them,” I said, leaning against a tree, “for I am 
no Englishman at all, my Quaker friend, but an American, and I have 
merely been teaching you a few tricks.” 

I expected him to burst out into a great sputter of indignation, but 


MY PENNSYLVANIAN. 715 

he did nothing of the kind. He sat down on a convenient stone and 
looked at me, an air of fine contemplation on his face. 

‘‘ So/^ he said, you are not what I took you to be. You are an 
American.’’ 

That is the precise truth,” I said. Haven’t you got into a pretty 
pickle, allowing yourself to be taken in such a highly ridiculous fashion 
by one of your own comrades ? Why, the whole army will be laughing 
at you for months.” 

They would laugh of a certainty,” he said, in his musing fashion. 

That was a hard blow you gave me. I feel it yet.” 

Yes,” I said, but it will not interfere with your marching. Come 
along now : I think we’d better be returning.” 

I don’t think I’ll go,” he said, decidedly. 

«Why?” I asked. 

It’s because I told you the truth,” he said. I am, as I said, 
an Englishman, and not a Pennsylvanian. It’s the first real chance 
you’ve given me to say so.” 

There, on the border of the English encampment, I could not doubt 
that his words were true, even had not his tone been convincing. I 
felt great surprise, and in truth much chagrin too, I confess. But I 
have always made it a point to hide my feelings. 

I looked at the man, and he looked at me, though I do not think 
that either could read the other’s face. 

I bear you no malice for that blow,” he said. 

You should not,” I replied. ‘^It was not intended for you, but 
for a Pennsylvanian.” 

But I got it,” he said. 

It was one of the little mistakes that will occur in the military 
life,” I replied, apologetically. 

He seemed satisfied with that, and we relapsed into a gloomy silence. 

You are my prisoner,” he said, after waiting a minute or two. 

You are mine,” I replied. 

I have only to give one halloo,” he said, ‘^and a dozen comrades 
will come running over that hill there to take you.” 

I have only to pull the trigger of this rifle that I hold in my 
hand,” I said, to blow you into the Englishman’s heaven.” 

He rubbed his head and thought a moment. 

It seems to me that we are both in a tight fix,” he said, despond- 
ently. 

It looks like it,” I said, with equal despondency. 

He shook his head slowly, as if the matter were too deep for him. 
But my mind was at work. 

There is no law against an exchange of prisoners,” I said. 

There is none that I ever heard of,” he replied, brightening up. 

I’ll give you my prisoner for yours,” I said. 

It’s a fair trade,” he replied. 

Then we may consider the bargain complete,” I said. 

It’s done,” he replied ; but we ought to ratify it in some manner.” 

It’s the custom to put these things in writing,” I said ; but we 
have no writing-materials.” 


716 


HARD TIMES AMONG THE HEROINES. 


I have something else/’ he said. Wait a bit.” 

He thrust his hand into his pocket, and, pulling out a large black 
bottle, handed it to me. I drew the cork and took a long, deep, and 
refreshing draught. Then I handed the bottle back to him, and he 
took a drink of equal duration. 

You are hospitable,” I said. 

It’s no more than right that I should offer it to you,” he replied, 
stole it this morning from an American farm-house.” 

It’s none the worse for that,” I said. 

Then we saluted, and he went back to his army and I went back to 
mine. 

Joseph A, Altsheler, 


HARD TIMES AMONG THE HEROINES. 

T hose torments of youth, our copy-books, informed us, in their 
assertive fashion, that all the evil in this wicked world has its 
root in the love of money. At the age when I was learning to shade 
the fs of this proverbial sentence to the degree of blackness necessary 
to secure my dismissal from school in time for a warm dinner, my 
allowance of spending- money was but twenty-five cents a week. This 
state of affairs led me to wonder what evil was to spring up in me 
taking root in the fact that, even while my reluctant fingers traced the 
letters in my book, my small mercenary soul was ardently longing for 
an increase of my income to fifty cents. To my young mind it seemed 
that a great many virtues might be implanted in my nature through 
an increase of my spending-money, and I do not remember having 
once thought of covetousness, or greed, or self-indulgence, or any of 
the evil traits which Miss Edgeworth would have us believe are lying 
in wait to spring into activity at the identical moment in which a small 
girl wants what she does not happen to possess. Then and there a 
dislike to the very positive way in which maxims state their discoveries 
was implanted in my youthful mind, — a dislike which time has not 
succeeded in wholly removing. When, later in my history, I made 
the acquaintance of the heroines of the novels, I felt my youthful 
longings for financial ease justified by the suspicion that much of the 
happiness and not a little of the heroic conduct of these ladies depended 
on the size of the incomes allowed them by the authors. 

Think, for a moment, how much the love-afPairs as well as the 
disposition and noble deeds of Dorothea Brooke were influenced by 
pounds and shillings. What if that uncomfortable Mr. Casaubon, 
who, Mrs. Cadwallader assures us, — and I, for one, see no reason to 
question her assertion, — possessed cuttle-fish fluid for blood, had been 
just as disagreeable without a fortune to provide a library for himself, 
a boudoir for Dorothea, and servants to keep both in order? Would 
Dorothea’s emotions — and even we who most admire Miss Brooke 
must admit them to have been troublesome at times — have kept their 
^‘rare and divine” quality had they been spent in the cause of making 
ends meet? We are persuaded that Mr. Casaubon was neat ; we know 


HARD TIMES AMONG THE HEROINES. 


717 


him to have been exacting. Without servants or money, it is apparent 
that Dorothea's life as a housewife would have been a trying one. 
How much less gratifying to be compelled to picture her, with hot, 
flushed face, bending over a kitchen stove, or wrinkling her brow over 
the day^s bill of fare, than to see her in picturesque attitude in the 
Vatican, a breathing, blooming girl, whose form, not shamed by the 
Ariadne, was clad in Quakerish gray.^^ It is certain she would have 
needed our sympathy had poverty forced her to sit opposite Mr. 
Casaubon, contemplating badly-cooked potatoes, and to hear his cold, 
polite Dorothea, my love,^^ prefatory to encyclopaedic criticisms of 
overdone beef, delivered after the mournful fashion of the discussions 
concerning The Key to All Mythologies.^^ 

Facts force us to remember that, after all, the deeds for which we 
most admire this modern St. Theresa — her generosity to Lydgate, her 
presentation of the living to Mr. Farebrother — were made possible 
only by the money of that gentleman who had such a great soul, and 
was so old, and dismal, and learned,^^ and made such a noise when he 
ate his soup. I find it impossible not to wonder what would have 
been the effect on Dorothea's divineness had her parents failed to leave 
her seven hundred a year on which to have her own way. It is not 
pleasant to think of her as an inmate of Celia’s home, as might have 
been her fate had Mr. Casaubon not possessed a fortune as well as 
fatty degeneration of the heart. One involuntarily wonders how many 
pounds of sal volatile Celia would have had to lay in against this 
visit ; for we must admit, however reluctantly we do it, that it was not 
in Dorothea’s nature to be sufficiently judicious or politic to submit 
herself to the guidance of Celia’s eminently sensible husband, Sir 
James. Is it not then evident that she would have worked herself 
into constant spells of hysteria under Lady Chettam’s Control your- 
self, my dear,” and Celia’s But, Dodo, James says ”? 

Surely it was considerate and thoughtful in George Eliot to allow 
Dorothea that seven hundred a year of her own, on which to go her 
way as Mrs. Ladislaw. We firmly believe she would never have 
adjusted herself to the household of Sir James, and certainly there was 
about Will Ladislaw the suggestion that he would never have been 
much of a money-maker. Moreover, there is a doubt as to Dorothea’s 
capacity for practical economy, either as Mrs. Casaubon or as Mrs. 
Ladislaw. Though she assures Ladislaw she will need no new clothes, 
and will learn the cost of things, there lingers the suspicion that without 
that seven hundred a year the Ladislaw household, early in its existence, 
would have been compelled to call to its aid easy-going Mr. Brooke. 

Now Mr. Thomas Hardy, unlike the author of Middlemarch,” 
completely forgets to make proper allowances to his heroines. And the 
consequence? Disgrace or trouble falls with tragic force not only on 
these straitened ladies, but with equal emphasis on the high-minded, 
aspiring, peculiar heroes. Moreover, by his parsimony Hardy involves 
the destinies of entire families w^hose chief sin seems to have been a 
failure to put strait-jackets on the heroines. How docile, how well 
behaved, Tess, Sue, Elfrida, might have been had Hardy permitted 
them to inherit seven hundred a year ! Tess could have supported 


718 


HARD TIMES AMONG THE HEROINES. 


her family in an ease becoming Sir John’s mightiness, fallen though 
it was; Sue could have engaged a chaperon; and Eifrida — well, 
money is useful even to blue-eyed heroines, especially when persistent 
old women will go about discussing their sons’ love-affairs. 

George Eliot, since she was a woman, had probably needed money 
herself at times; and this may explain why she shows proper con- 
sideration for her heroines, letting few of them suffer life-long poverty. 
Romola’s income enables her to care for Tessa and bring Nello up 
according to her own educational theories ; Janet, having money, 
repents comfortably, being enabled to arrange a pleasant home for Mr. 
Tryan, to be near him in his last moments, and to erect a stone to his 
memory. Hardy’s poor Tess, on the contrary, is not even allowed 
enough money to pay for the family monument. Gwendolen Harleth 
had been used to ease ; and it naturally followed that it was only when 
George Eliot injudiciously invested the family’s fortune with Grapnell 
and Co., who failed for a million,” that the faults in her character 
got the better of her. And Rosamond Vincy, — did she not make 
herself thoroughly pleasant as soon as George Eliot permitted her 
Tertius to provide his family with a becoming income by writing a 
treatise on gout and alternating in practice between London and a 
Continental watering-place? Who but George Eliot is responsible 
for the tragic career of Maggie Tulliver? Did she not fail to make 
suitable financial provision for Maggie’s introduction into the society 
of St. Ogg’s in the conventional fashion at the proper age, thus pre- 
cipitating the affair with Stephen? With Mrs. Tulliver, I bitterly 
regret those spotted cloths” and the china with the gold sprigs all 
over ’em between the flowers,” since the cause of their sale necessitated 
Maggie’s wearing Aunt Pullet’s made-over gowns and lodging, after 
her trouble, with Bob Jakin’s wife. George Eliot, however, at least 
permits Esther Lyon to sample financial prosperity before giving, her 
Felix Holt, minus cravat and waistcoat, for a husband, and then 
wisely drops the curtain on Esther’s struggles with Felix and poverty. 

There is a heroine of fiction who fully realized the important part 
money plays in the affairs of life and love. For practical, realistic 
views of life, Jane Eyre has no rival among the heroines. Do we not 
find her telling Mr. Rochester, in the plainest terms, that were she 
possessed ‘^of some beauty and much money” slie could make him her 
ready captive? Beauty she recognizes as an inferior factor to money. 
Wise Jane ! She had not sat in corners and looked on life to no pur- 
pose. I recall that, when a girl, I thought Miss Eyre sordid ; time 
has taught me that perhaps Jane’s extremely disagreeable childhood 
had enabled her to see how exceedingly necessary money is to the hap- 
piness and success of a heroine. Charlotte Bronte, like George Eliot, 
was a woman, and probably, not having particularly enjoyed the por- 
ridge and stone floors of Haworth Parsonage, she lets Jane Eyre inherit 
her uncle’s fortune in time to prevent the entire destruction of her 
happiness. Without money to pay her travelling expenses to Fern- 
dean Manor, it is almost certain that Jane would have been persuaded 
into becoming a missionary, — a vocation for which she was entirely 
unfitted, being thoroughly practical, and valuing all the advantages 


HARD TIMES AMONG THE HEROINES. 


719 


of a home and an income. While Miss Bronte’s generosity saved the 
love-affairs of Shirley Keeldar from the humiliating condition into 
which poverty plunged those of Caroline Helstone, there is one of her 
heroines whom she reduces to sore straits. Poor Lucy Snowe ! I 
have always felt that, as the author of Villette” began to enjoy an 
income of her own from Jane Eyre” and Shirley,” she forgot to be 
generous enough to share it with Lucy Snowe. 

If the author of ‘^Vanity Fair” had treated Miss Rebecca Sharp 
with some little generosity in the matter of an allowance, would she 
have descended to such acts as concealing that thousand-pound note of 
Lord Steyne’s, or becoming a valuable attendant during sickness” on 
her stout friend Jos Sedley? Are not her many sins on Thackeray’s 
soul, since it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have 
allowed her a small stipend ? 

Potent indeed was money in the philanthropies of Mrs. Ward’s 
Marcella. Without it, could that ^Mivine busybody,” as somebody 
has called Lady Maxwell, have experimented with the woes and labors 
of humanity? We wonder, however, if in Marcella’s case Mrs. 
Ward’s generosity was not a little misplaced. There is reason to 
think that it might have been better for Sir George Tressady, certainly 
for the comfort of relatives and friends, and most undeniably for 
Marcella herself, if she had been forced by poverty, or rather by 
moderate means, to spend more time over her housekeeping. The 
eternal presence of things about a house which need reforming might 
have consumed some of that tireless energy which even wore upon 
that long-suffering figure-head. Lord Maxwell. Money, however, is a 
necessary factor in the housekeeping affairs of even heroines; other- 
wise, would that charming hostess, Diana of the Crossways, have 
turned traitor to a guest when George Meredith failed to allow her an 
income sufficiently large to meet her household expenses ? 

Scott, who seems to have always had a right and proper regard for 
the material things of life, displays, for a man, practical knowledge 
of what women need to make them both good and comfortable. No 
matter through what trials he drags his heroines, he rarely fails to 
make them proper allowance for clothes and jewels. Recall his gener- 
osity to Rebecca: would she have been enabled to gain our lasting 
admiration if Isaac of York had been less energetic in the accumu- 
lation of the gold and silver pieces needed for his daughter’s career? 
And I, for one, must confess that Amy Robsart’s disobedient conduct 
was forgotten in my enjoyment of the splendor of her garments and 
apartments. Even now I recall the white cymar lined with fur which 
she wore on the morning of Leicester’s departure from Cum nor Hall ; 
not to speak of the cambric partlet, nor the pair of sleeves, nor the 
roundells of gold fringe drawn out with Cyprus, nor the short cloak of 
cherry-colored fine cloth garnished with gold buttons and loops, which 
she purchased from the peddler at Cumnor Hall ; nor that exquisite 
green silk she was wearing when discovered by Elizabeth at Kenil- 
worth. And just here I must own that the copy-book might feel 
itself justified when I confess that, at fifteen, I thought the absence 
of the earl might well have been supported, since he left behind him 


720 


HARD TIMES AMONG THE HEROINES. 


those purses well filled with gold, which Amy had such a habit of care- 
lessly flinging to Janet, telling her to purchase bodkins mounted in 
silver, or dresses for the servants. I have never forgotten those blue 
velvet curtains lined with crimson silk, deeply festooned with gold and 
silver, and embroidered with the loves of Cupid and Psyche ; nor that 
beautiful Venetian mirror in the frame of filigree; nor those milk- 
white pearls ; nor — but come, we must discipline ourselves by a glance 
at a less wealthy heroine. 

Poor Lily ! Why did Bulwer not consult Jane Eyre, and realize 
that a comfortable fortune will cover any amount of family trouble? 
Had he been more of a realist, Kenelm Chillingly need never have 
mourned beside the grave of this lovely child. How fortunate it 
was for Esther Summerson that Dickens atoned for her mother’s dis- 
grace with the fortune of her guardian ! But, on the whole, it must be 
owned that Dickens, like many men, thought that women do not need 
money of their own ; else why was Little Dorrit denied even a suspi- 
cion of an income, Lizzie Hexam left to accept educational favors from 
a young man, and Caddy Jellyby’s unhappy father compelled to take 
the benefit of the bankrupt law, when a reasonable allowance would 
have saved the Dorrits from prison, have educated Lizzie, and have 
paid the salary of a housekeeper for the Jellybys, not to mention that 
of an extra secretary to assist in writing letters to Borrioboola-Gha ? 

Did not Miss Sharp, as soon as Thackeray gave her Joe’s life in- 
surance, occupy herself in works of piety? Was not her name on all 
the charity lists? Did not the Deserted Orange-girl, the Neglected 
Washerwoman, the Distressed MuflSn-man, find in her a fast and gener- 
ous friend” ? Did she not have stalls at the fancy fairs for the benefit 
of these hapless beings” ? 

And the moral of it all? For, the Duchess told Alice, ^^Every- 
thing’s got a pioral, if only you can find it.” Is the case of the hero- 
ines of the novels so very different from the case of the heroines — and 
of the heroes too — of real life? Perhaps with a little money early in 
life the evil in Miss Rebecca Sharp might have slumbered for all time ; 
and who can tell to what dire confusion poverty might have brought 
the Dorotheas and Marcellas ? The scientists maintain that the 
struggle for food and clothing is the incentive to progress and civiliza- 
tion ; the emotionalists, with a shudder at this materialism, assign 
loftier motives for human conduct. Whichever may be right, neither 
can deny that the best of us like our little comforts, whether, as in 
the case of His Royal Spendthriftness of Wales, it takes fifty mil- 
lions to supply them, or, like some aged gentlemen of African descent, 
we crave only a few cents with which to buy corncob pipe and bag of 
tobacco ; whether, like Queen Elizabeth, three hundred and sixty-five 
dresses are needed to fill our wardrobes, or, as in the case of the Pil- 
grim mothers, we are content with homespun to make us a Lord’s-day 
gown ? Which of us can tell how smiling and well-behaved the worst 
of us might become if, as in the case of the heroines, some one pos- 
sessed the author’s power to bestow upon us just that suitable allow- 
ance which each feels would bring about a state of perfect comfort ? 

^ Eva A, Madden, 


BOOKS OF THE MONTH. 

It was an undertaking of monumental proportions, some- 
thing akin to the creation of Dr. Johnson’s original dic- 
tionary, to plan and carry through the work known uni- 
versally as Thomas’s Complete Medical Dictionary. This 
was the task of the founder of the J. B. Lippincott Com- 
pany, and for a generation his production has been the 
standard. But with the advance of medicine as a science 
and in all its phases it became necessary to enlarge the 
scope of the foundation volume, and this has now been 
done with such judicious care and learned insight that the present magnificent 
book is destined to take its place in the van of the newer medicine of to-day 
as its predecessor did in the front rank of the science of its own era. 

That this is justly so may be gathered from a recital of the editors in whose 
hands the revision has been placed. These are John Ashhurst, Jr., M.D., LL.D., 
Barton Professor of Surgery and Professor of Clinical Surgery in the University 
of Pennsylvania; George A. Piersol, M.D., Professor of Anatomy in the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania; and Joseph P. Eemington, Ph.M., F.C.S., Professor 
of Theory and Practice of Pharmacy in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. 
Such names give authority to the revision from the medical stand-point, and 
united with them as lexicographers were Mr, Ryland W. Greene and Dr. Rus- 
sell H. Nevins, a combination of all the elements of scholarly editing which it 
would be diflScult to surpass in a city whose physicians have always held a 
leading place throughout the world. 

It is needless to say that Lippincott’s Medical Dictionary is entirely up to 
date in every respect. Its form is the result of ripe experience in printing 
lexicographic works, its data are unimpeachable, and its eleven hundred and 
fifty octavo pages contain all that any student of medicine will need for a decade 
or two to come. 

We are told that “ The plan throughout has been to give complete, accurate, 
and useful information concerning every medical term that a student, physi- 
cian, or general reader would be likely to meet in the course of his study and 
reading. The constant endeavor has been to make the explanation of each 
word distinct and full without verbosity.” 

The Lippincott Company should receive not only the congratulations of 
every medical practitioner and pupil, but his gratitude as well, for this rich 
addition to the literature of the healing art. 

¥ 

In the short, pointed story without involutions of plot or 
By\o^u issues there is no one superior in our day to Louis 

Becke. Every word of his narrative tells; every figure 
plays its essential part. He knows thoroughly his own limitations and capacities, 
and he deals, therefore, with the subject which he has best in hand, namely, the 
South Seas in all their phases. 

His last and longest story is well called His Native Wife. The plot is con- 
centrated into these three words. John Barrington had taken a wife from the 
VoL. LIX.— 46 721 


Lippincott’ s Medical 
Dictionary. Edited 
by Ryland W. 
Greene, B.A., John 
Ashhurst, Jr., M.D., 
LL.D., George A, 
Piersol, M.D., and 
Joseph P. Reming- 
ton, Ph.M., F.C.S. 


722 


BOOKS OF THE MONTH 


islanders. She was a dusky beauty named Nadee, who loved him much, and 
he returned her affection as a ne’er-do-well Englishman, fond of adventure, 
might. But to the island of their idyllic love-making came Rev. Hosea Parker, 
a canting missionary from Boston, with his young wife Kate, and Kate presently 
fell in love with Barrington and cursed herself inwardly for her unfaith to 
Hosea. This group separates before long, but is again brought together fortui- 
tously in the brig Kellet Passmore off the island of L6sap, and the curtain 
goes down on a tragedy which the wife of Barrington, in a moment of passion, 
offers as her solution of what she conceives to be her husband’s recreancy. 

This is but a skeleton of the thrilling tale. It is full of rare color, tropical 
in picturesqueness and passion, and overflowing with resource in character, from 
the Yankee captain Bennett to his dago mate Herrera, and through a half- 
dozen others as cleverly drawn. The story is not a long one. With its well- 
chosen pictures, it fits snugly into the buff covers of the dainty Lotm Library^ 
one of Lippincotts’ happy inventions for hurried readers. 


The Calculus for 
Engineers and 
Physicists. By 
Professor Robert H. 
Smith. 


Every branch of science which claims the aid of mathe- 
matics will profit by the publication of this compact volume, 
entitled The Calculus for Engineers and Physicists, with the 
sub-title Integration and Differentiation, with Applications 
to Technical Problems; with Classified Reference Tables 
of Integrals and Methods of Integration. The author is 
Professor Robert H. Smith, a member of many learned bodies, who knows thor- 
oughly how to render into words his well-stored knowledge. He especially 
addresses himself “ to engineers and physicists engaged in new applications of 
science,” and he states that “ the work is constructed on lines so novel” that he 
is practically an innovator in his field. 

The book is an excellent example of the scientific publications jointly 
issued by J. B. Lippincott Company and GriflSn & Company of London, and its 
many diagrams and examples, with the full text, will make it a standard with 
scholars and students. 


Hand-books by expert specialists which give clearly the 
pith of any science are always in demand. Hence the 
great success of this little volume of Mr. William Jasper 
Nicolls, which has now gone into a fifth edition. Mr. 
Nicolls is an American engineer of eminence, who is known 
to members of his profession by the present work and 
especially by his later book. The Story of American Coals (Lippincott), which 
has just met with wide praise and instant acceptance throughout the country. 
His style of technical narrative is clear and direct, and he gives information 
which laymen eagerly desire but rarely know how to secure. To capitalists, 
contractors, and operators this rbsumt of railroad construction, entitled The 
Railway Builder, will be an invaluable guide, and to young engineers it is an 
essential. Much new matter has been added in this latest edition from the Lip- 
pincott press, and a change in the size has been made which renders the well- 
bound volume all that the non-professional reader, to whom it is especially 
addressed, could desire. The chapter-heads, which indicate the scope of the 
book, are Field Operations, Preliminary Surveys, Cost of Earthwork, Permanent 
Way, Frogs and Switches, Equipment, and D6p6ts and Structures. 


The Railway 
Builder. A Hand- 
book. By William 
Jasper Nicolls, M. 
Am. Soc. C. £. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


723 





724 


CURRENT NOTES. 


A Crank. — Winks. — “ What sort of a man is Blinks, anyway?'^ 

Jinks. — Oh, he’s one of those men who, if they should happen to read 
that Charles Dickens was born on Friday, February 2, 1824, would take keen 
delight in showing that February 2, 1824, fell on Tuesday, and that the biog- 
rapher, in consequence, was wrong .” — Somerville Journal. 

Sir Walter Raleigh’s Pipe. — Among the many anecdotes told of 
Raleigh’s practices with his pipe may be mentioned that of his outwitting the 
queen in a wager she laid with the gallant knight respecting the weight of the 
smoke which exhaled from a pipe-full of tobacco. “ I can assure your majesty,” 
said Raleigh, that I have so well experienced the nature of it that I can exactly 
tell even the weight of the smoke in any quantity I consume.” I doubt it 
much. Sir Walter,” replied Elizabeth, thinking only how impossible it must be 
to catch the smoke and put it in a balance, “ and will wager you twenty angels 
that you do not solve my doubt.” Whereupon Raleigh drew forth a quantity 
of the weed, placed it in finely adjusted scales, and, having ascertained its 
weight, commenced to smoke it, carefully preserving the ashes. These at the 
finish he weighed with great exactness. 

Then would it dawn upon her majesty how the wager was to end. Your 
majesty,” said Raleigh, ‘‘cannot deny that the difference hath evaporated in 
smoke.” “ Truly I cannot,” was her reply. Then, turning to those around her, 
who were eying with amusement the curious play on the pipe, she continued, 
“ Many laborers in the fire have I heard of [alluding to alchemists] who turned 
their gold into smoke, but Sir Walter is the first who has turned smoke into 
gold.” — Gentleman's Magazine. 

Different Kinds of French. — Diner. — “So you are hard at work 
studying French. What is the object of that?” 

Waiter. — “ I’ve been offered a steady job at big pay in Paris if I learn 
French before going there.” 

“ Humph ! There are plenty of French waiters in Paris.” 

“Ye-e-s, but, you see, they can’t understand French as London people 
speak it .” — London Judy. 

Days Three Hours Long. — When the earth was young, says Dr. Ball, 
the eminent British astronomer, it turned on its axis so rapidly it made one 
complete revolution once in every three hours. The earth was liquid then, and 
it spun around at that fearful speed probably for thousands of years. The sun 
caused ever-increasing tides on the surface of the great liquid planet, and at 
last it burst in two. But the break was not in the middle of what had been the 
great swift-revolving globe of liquid matter. It was to one side, and the effect 
was to throw the smaller fragment out into space. That fragment kept on 
turning, and was soon fashioned into a globe. We see it to-day and know it as 
the moon. The larger piece also kept turning on its axis, and in the course of 
ages became the spherical, habitable earth. The smaller fragment of the great 
original globe, being held in place by the attraction of the larger, has been 
going around the earth ever since, but has been gradually increasing the dis- 
tance between itself and its primary. Some astronomers believe that eventually 
the moon will get so far away that it cannot be seen by the inhabitants of our 
planet. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


725 







OOME of the problems 
^ the children bring; 
home from school are 
too difficult for us to 
solve^ but we often have 
more difficult questions 
than these* What shall 
be done with the delicate 
boy or girl who keeps 
thin and pale^ who docs 
not develop and grow 
like the other children? 


SCOTT’S EMULSION 


will solve this problem easily. It is 
new life for backward and poorly 
developed children. They 
don^t object to it. They like 
it and even become fond of it. 

For sale by all druggists at ^oc. and $i.oo 
^ ^ ‘ SCOTT & BOWNE, Chemists, New York 


726 


CURRENT NOTES. 


Two Hundred Feet of Fish. — A few thousand years ago there musL 
have been high water out in Wyoming, and that water must have been full 
of fish. Geologists have recently discovered immense hills and plains a mile 
and a half above the level of the sea made entirely out of the bodies of fishes 
turned to stone. These beds of petrified fish, containing millions upon millions 
of individual specimens, cover hundreds of square miles in the northwestern 
part of the State. In some places these beds — almost a solid mass of perfectly 
fossilized fish — are from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in thickness. 
— Chicago Record. 

Stopping Hiccoughs. — A new method of stopping hiccoughs is said to 
have been accidentally discovered in a French hospital. It consists in thrust- 
ing the tongue out of the mouth and holding it thus for a short time. 

Women who Carry Dolls. — Not only has the use of dolls been in vogue 
from the remotest ages, but it is common in all barbarous nations as well as 
among civilized peoples. Neither is it to children alone that the fondling of 
dolls is confined, for among many uncultured tribes females are known to carry 
dolls long after they have arrived at womanhood. 

The women of the Bechuanas carry these queer toys until they give birth 
to a child that lives, and the Basuto women have a similar practice. 

In many sections of Africa twins are regarded with unspeakable terror. 
There is, in fact, a tradition among the savages that if both children are allowed 
to live they must be either mentally or physically unsound, as they would have 
but one spirit between them. 

Accordingly, whenever twins are born, the younger is always killed by the 
parents. As though in some measure to show she did not wish to be cruel to 
the murdered offspring, the mother takes about with her a doll and bestows 
upon it a care equal to that which she would have bestowed upon her dead 
child. 

Among the Wanyamwezi it is customary for the parents to kill one of the 
twins and then to wrap a gourd or calabash in skins, to place it to sleep in 
the same bed with the surviving child, and even to put food to its lips. 

These dolls of the savages are for the most part cut out of plain wood, 
though in a few cases an elephant’s tusk is utilized for the same purpose. — 
Pearson's Weekly. 


The Borrowing Habit. — There is no habit so easy to fall into nor one 
so hard to break as that of borrowing. It is so simple to say will you lend 
me,’* but when the time comes to pay back the loan you are almost sure to 
begrudge it and murmur something about paying for a dead horse,” forgetting 
how much you appreciated the kindness shown you at the time you hesitatingly 
whispered “ will you lend .” — Philadelphia Times. 

A Wise Precaution. — “Apropos of the medicine-chest,” remarked a 
physician a day or two ago, “ it is a wise law to guard against poisoning which 
Germany has passed. All drugs intended for internal use must in that country 
be put up in round bottles, and those which are only used externally must be 
placed in hexagonal bottles .” — New York Times. 



728 


CURRENT NOTES. 


A Powerful Disinfectant. — When cholera was so greatly feared in 
Baltimore in 1867 and the years following, Dr. Piggot, a celebrated chemist of 
the time, announced that the only disinfectant of any use in the cholera fight 
w’^as copperas, or sulphate of iron, and he made a composition of charcoal and 
copperas which is said to have been invaluable in its disinfecting properties^ 
The idea is, first provide a means for absorbing the death-dealing gas carrying 
with it millions of disease-germs, then have the necessary agent to destroy the 
germs after they are absorbed. Soot is claimed to be superior to charcoal be- 
cause it contains some of the unoxidized hydrocarbons contained in the smoke 
from the fuel, and among these hydrocarbons is creosote, a germ-killer of 
wonderful power . — Baltimore American. 

Tried to Kide an Ostrich. — I donT believe the stories told about the 
natives in Africa and Australia riding ostriches,’’ said L. P. Haney, of Norwich, 
California. Americans are the best riders on earth, but they cannot ride 
ostriches. I saw this pretty thoroughly tried on one occasion. A cowboy who 
had vanquished every pony he ever undertook to break in was induced to try 
an ostrich. After an hour’s hard work he succeeded in mounting the bird, 
which at first tried to shake him off, then to get away by running, but these 
tactics, of course, had no effect upon the cowboy. Then, in spite of all the man 
could do, the ostrich succeeded in getting its head around and seizing the man 
by one leg. He doubled his feet under him, and the ostrich reached over its 
wings and got a good hold of his back, throwing him heavily to the ground and 
tramping on him. It took three of us to chase the infuriated ostrich away, and 
we accomplished it barely in time to save the man’s life. I don’t believe the 
native Australians ride ostriches.” — Washington Star. 

One Way of Looking at it. — A little lad in our neighborhood had 
climbed a very steep spout attached to his parents’ house to get a nest which 
had been built by some birds. 

He was successful, and was walking away with his companions, when a 
gentleman who had watched his dangerous feat stopped him and said, — 

‘‘My little fellow, I was sorry to see you risk your life for such a paltry 
thing. What would have happened if the spout had given way ?” 

“Oh,” said the lad, “it wouldn’t have mattered much. We’re going to 
leave the house to-morrow.” — Pearson^ s Weekly. 

Weather and Crime. — Do you believe this? Mr. Robert Q. Grant says 
that violent barometric changes and crime are coincident. A man’s badness, 
therefore, depends largely on the atmosphere. When the barometer is up, then 
the world is cheerful, and maladies allow the sufferer to enjoy convalescence, 
and even pickpockets and murderers think seriously of earning an honest 
living. But when the barometer is depressed, then melancholia prevails, people 
who are sick are more likely to die, men contemplate suicide in order to find 
relief, and the murderer loads his gun. Men are not naturally bad ; the diflS- 
culty is with the barometer. Fair weather, crime less; a low barometer, a 
crop of evils. Well, there may be something in it, for, now I think of it, a 
cold easterly storm always brings on my rheumatism, and I do feel like setting 
a house on fire or blowing some one up with dynamite. Is it all the fault of 
the barometer — or isn’t it ? — New York Herald. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


729 



33d Annual Statement of the 

TRAVELERS 

INSURANCE COMPANY. | 

Chartered J863. (Stock.) Life and Accident Insurance. 

JAMES Q. BATTERSON, President. Hartford, Conn., January i, 1897. 

PAID=UP CAPITAL, = - $1,000,000.00 



ASSETS. 

Real Estate 81,953,756.09 

Cash on Hand and in Bank 1,462,133.26 

Loans on Bond and Mortgage, Real Estate 5,377,156.02 

Interest Accrued, but not Due 203,121.89 

Loans on Collateral Security 714,150.00 

Loans on this Company’s Policies 936,342.31 

Deferred Life Premiums 291,935 47 

Premiums Due and Unreported on Life Policies 255,503.67 

State, County, and Municipal Bonds 3,361,078.92 

Railroad Stocks and Bonds 3,767,171.00 

Bank Stocks 1,084,966.00 

Miscellaneous Stocks and Bonds 1,489,370.00 

Total Assets $20,896,684.63 

LIABILITIES. 

Reserve, 4 per cent.. Life Department 815.561,585.00 

Reserve for Re-insurance, Accident Department 1,311,974.40 

Present Value of Matured Instalment Policies 354,570.00 

Special Reserve for Contingent Liabilities 286,651.98 

Losses Unadjusted and not Due, and all other Liabilities 405,478.89 

Total Liabilities $17,920,260.27 

Surplus to Policy-holders $2,976,424.36 

STATISTICS TO DATE. 

Life Department. 

Number Life Policies Written 90,479 

Life Insurance in Force $88,243,267.00 

New Life Insurance written in 1896 11,941,012.00 

Insurance issued under the Annuity Plan is entered 
at the commuted value thereof, as required by law. 

Returned to Policy-holders in 1896 1,228,077.90 

Returned to Policy-holders since 1864 11,914,765.18 

Accident Department. 

Number Accident Policies Written 2,338,186 

Number Accident Claims Paid in 1896 14,163 

Whole Number Accident Claims Paid 292,379 

Returned to Policy-holders in 1896 $ 1,373,936.96 

Returned to Policy-holders since 1864 19,8 2 8,189.13 

Returned to Policy-holders in 1896 $ 2,602,014.86 

Returned to Policy-holders since 1864 31,742,954.31 

JOHN E. MORRIS, Acting Secretary. GEORGE ELLIS, Actuary. 

EDWARD V. PRESTON, Sup’t of Agencies. 

J. B. LEWIS, M.D., Surgeon and Adjuster. SYLVESTER C. DUNHAM, Counsel. 


730 


CURRENT NOTES. 


How Muskrats breathe under Ice.— W. Spoon, the naturalist, asserts 
that the muskrat when obliged to go beneath the ice from one side to the other 
of a pond has a curious mode of taking along his air-supply. Instinct teaches 
him to take in a deep breath before starting, but even this he knows will be 
insufficient for the trip. Accordingly, he halts occasionally and exhales the 
exhausted air from his lungs. This air, being confined by the ice in the shape 
of a bubble, and in full contact with the icy water, becomes almost instantly 
reoxygenated. When the transformation is completed the wise rat again takes 
in his old breath, which is now a fresh inspiration. Thus rejuvenated, he again 
dives out of sight and begins swimming for the other side, only coming up 
against the ice as often as it is necessary for him to refreshen that valuable little 
breath of air. But few hunters and trappers are aware of the muskrat’s odd 
plan of changing his poisonous breath into a fresh inspiration, but those who 
are take a mean advantage. By striking a heavy blow on the ice the air is dis- 
persed, and the little animal dies of asphyxia. 

Queen Victoria’s Cigars. — Queen Victoria not only does not smoke, but 
does not even permit smoking in her immediate neighborhood. And yet she 
consumes annually about a thousand of the finest Havana cigars, which are 
specially made for her and are intended for her guests. They are so expensive 
that even in Cuba, at wholesale prices, these cigars could not be had under one 
dollar apiece. The men who make them receive thirty cents United States 
currency for every one, as they must be most carefully selected and twisted, and 
none but the oldest and most skilful workmen are intrusted with their fabrica- 
tion. To them the work is a regular gold-mine, as they can turn out about 
three hundred cigars a day, pocketing about ninety dollars per diem. When 
finished they are hermetically sealed into glass tubes, in order to guard against 
deterioration, connoisseurs insisting that the Havana leaf is affected by a 
change of climate and that no Havana cigars can taste as well abroad as in 
Havana. 

Constraint. 

He who is held by law alone 
Wears fragile chains: 

Far firmer fetters he has known 
Whom love constrains 

Susie M. Best. 

Our Movable Capital. — The capital of the United States has not always 
been where it is now. It was at Philadelphia from September 5, 1774, until 
December, 1776; at Baltimore from December 20, 1776, to March, 1777; at 
Philadelphia from March 4, 1777, to September, 1777 ; at Lancaster, Pennsyl- 
vania, from September 27, 1777, to September 30, 1777 ; at York, Pennsylvania, 
from September 30, 1777, to July, 1778 ; at Philadelphia from July 2, 1778, to 
June 30, 1783; at Princeton, New Jersey, from June 30, 1783, to November 20, 
1783; at Annapolis, Maryland, from November, 1783, to November, 1784; at 
Trenton, New Jersey, from November, 1784, to January, 1785; at New York 
from January 11, 1785, to 1790, when the seat of government was changed to 
Philadelphia, where it remained until 1800, since which time it has been at 
Washington. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


731 





to you — you will nestle to 
slumber like a tired child. 
Take a glass just before going 
to bed, and in ten minutes you 
will drowsily go to Slumber- 
land. After a week or so, 
sleep will come naturally, and 
you won^t need the Tonic. 

Health, strength and mental 
calmness come also to help the 
weak, the weary and the 
heavy-laden, for 

PABST MALT EXTRACT 

IS 

The '^Best^^ Tonic. 


NEVER FAILS TO INSURE 
SLEEP. 

My wife being in a low state of 
health has received marked bene- 
fit from Pabst Malt Extract. It 
never fails to secure a night’s 
sleep for her when she takes it, 
from being tired and nervous. 

J. H. SHERMAN, M. D. 

Boston, Mass., Oct. 10th, 1890 


iiP 


MILWAUKEE BEER IS FAMOUS /PABSI HAS MADE IT 50 


CAN YOU SLEEP ? 


Homely language, like a 
homely girl, may so illum- 
inated by direct intelligence as 
to become positively fascinat- 
ing. When we say, ^*IVe had 
a good nap^% it^s homely, but 
my, doesn't it mean a loti 
Many can't sleep — don't 
even know what a good nap 
is. These weary ones toss, 
turn and agonize, wear out 
their brains and bodies, — a use- 
less waste of energy and life. 

Pabst Malt &tract, the 
^^Best" Tonic will bring sleep 


TME 


LIOnT 




732 


CURRENT NOTES. 


The crosses on the English royal crown were introduced by Richard III. 
during his short and turbulent reign. The arches of the diadem were added by 
Henry VII. in 1485. 

The Prussian Boss Sweep. — The unceasing desire to regulate every 
detail of the citizen’s life leads to some curious instances of interlerence with 
freedom of choice in Prussia. Thus, only a certain limited number of chemists 
is allowed in every town. One to five thousand inhabitants is the ratio. No 
doubt there are cynics who will be disposed to applaud such a regulation, but 
its practical efiect is to create a monopoly and to occasion much inconvenience. 
More curious still is the arrangement by which a master sweep is appointed to 
each district in a town. Him you must employ, whether you like it or not, — or 
at least you must pay him if you employ another. He, and he alone, has a 
legal right to the fee for sweeping your chimney. This makes him a very im- 
portant and often wealthy individual. Of course he has numerous assistants, 
and sometimes does no work at ail himself. I have heard of one such divisional 
sweep who was reputed to enjoy an income of fifteen hundred pounds a year 
from his business. In justice to the state, it should be added that such persons 
have to pass an examination before they are allowed to attain to these exalted 
positions. — Contemporary Review, 

A Fisherman’s Story. — About ten years ago — yes, just ten years — I 
pulled a bass out of the water that looked to weigh about a pound, and the line 
broke at a distance of about a foot from the hook,” said the fisherman. 

And then, about five years afterward,” another hastened to interrupt, 
you caught him again with the hook and line still in his mouth, and the fish 
had grown to weigh ten pounds.” 

The fisherman looked pained at this ruthless capture of his best story, and 
answered, “No, sir. He weighed less than two ounces. His vitality had all 
been consumed by the line, which had grown to twenty-eight feet two and three- 
eighths inches of clothes-line .” — Indianapolis Journal. 

Where did he Get them? — The old man is a great favorite on News- 
paper Row : his only failing is that he has asthma which he has to drown out 
occasionally. 

Last week he started out to drown his hay fever on pay-day. When he 
left the oflSce he counted among his possessions twenty-five dollars, his week’s 
salary. Just what happened to him is a mystery, because he never gained con- 
sciousness until he woke up in the station-house the next morning. He 
searched his pockets : they were empty. 

Eight o’clock came, and the station-keeper came to let him out. There 
was no charge against him : he had only been locked up to sleep it off. The 
station-keeper called out Bob’s name, and then began to hand out things that 
had been taken away from him when he was locked up, of which Bob had no 
knowledge : first his watch, then thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents, half as 
much again as Bob had when he started out, then a new suit of clothes, an 
umbrella, a box of paper collars, and a basket of grapes. 

Bob is still wondering where they came from. But he entertains the 
highest opinion of the Police Department and the Board of Public Safety. — 
Louisville Commercial, 


CURRENT NOTES. 


733 


The spectre 

of housecleaning needn’t trouble you a 
moment. The person that dreads house- 
cleaning knows nothing of Pearline — of 
its easy work, its quickness and comfort, 
its saving of paint and of rub- 
bing. Go over everything with / 
Pearline — floors, doors, win- i 
dows, woodwork, paint, mar- 
ble, stone, glass, carpets, bric- 
a>-brac — and you’ll get through any 
cleaning job in the shortest time, and with the least labor 
and fuss. You don’t need any other help. Pearline is 
meant to wash everything that water won’t hurt. 


Beware 


538 


Peddlers and some unscrupulous grocers will tell you, 
“this is as good as’' or “the same as Pearline.” IT’S 

, FALSE — Pearline is never peddled; if your grocer sends 

you an imitation, be honest — send it back, JAMES PYLE, New YorK. 


PROVIDENT LIFE AND TRUST CO. 

OF PHILADELPHIA. 

Attention is directed to the new Instalment- Annuity Policy of the Provident, 
which provides a fixed income for twenty years, and for the continuance of the 
income to the widow for the balance of her life, if she should survive the instal- 
ment period of twenty years. 

In everything which makes Life Insurance perfectly safe and moderate in cost, and 
in liberality to policy-holders, the Provident is unsurpassed. 


Ill-Tempered Babies are not desirable in any home. Insufficient nour- 
ishment produces ill temper. Guard against fretful children by feeding nutri- 
tious and digestible food. The Gail Borden Eagle Brand Condensed Milk is 
the most successful of all infant foods. 


734 


CURRENT NOTES. 


Wide-open, staring blue eyes, combined with a fair complexion, are said 
to indicate bad temper. 

A Suicidal Deer. — Anyhow, I heard a roar like a Fourth-o’-July salute, 
and when I got up there was an amazin^ smell o’ powder hoverin’ round, and 
the smoke was so thick I couldn’t see anything for as much as a minute, I guess. 
Then it cleared up. Yonder by the fence-post the old musket was layin’, peace- 
ful as a lamb, and over yonder, where you see that biggest claw in the patch, 
laid the deer, just as peaceful as the musket. The unfortunate critter had shot 
himself. Broke the game-law and shot himself out o’ season ! What’s the 
reason your business here hain’t got nothin’ to do with strawberry-patches, I’d 
like to know ?” 

“Mr. Collins,” said Protector Kidd, sternly, “ where is that deer?” 

“ Soon as I see what had happened,” replied Mr. Collins, “ I run in the house 
and told the folks, and then run down yonder to tell a neighbor. When I got 
back, the deer wasn’t layin’ in the patch any more. I asked my neighbor, 
who knows all about deer, whether he thought other deers could have come out 
o’ the woods and carried that dead deer back with ’em, and he said, knowin’ 
what he knowed about deer, especially Marlboro’ deer, it wouldn’t surprise him 
it they had. But I can show you the musket the deer shot himself with, pro- 
tector.” 

Protector Kidd didn’t care to see the musket, and, as the evidence wasn’t 
such as to warrant further proceedings against James Collins, the protector 
warned him against such carelessness in the future in carrying fire-arms in the 
presence of deer, and went home. — Goshen [N. Y.) Cor. New York Sun. 

A RAILROAD laborer in India earns from five to ten cents a day. 

“ Biled Clothes” startled him.— A Glasgow professor visiting Canada 
with the British Association in 1894 went out to an Alberta ranch to see some- 
thing of Northwest life. “ I fixed him up as well as I could,” the rancher re- 
lates, “but he complained, after the first night, that he did not like sleeping 
with his clothes on. So I stretched a cowskiu across the shack and told him, 
the second night, that he might undress if he liked. He took off most of his 
garments and put a long, white night-dress on. My foreman, coming in in the 
early morning, while yet the gentleman was sleeping, and observing the white 
night-dress, said, in a whisper, — 

“ ‘ Rather sudden, eh ?’ 

“‘What?’ 

“ ‘ The death of the old man.’ 

“ ‘ He’s not dead : he’s asleep.’ 

“ ‘ Not dead ? Then what’s he wearin’ them biled clothes for ? Never saw a 
chap laid out in biled clothes afore, ’cept he were dead.’ ” — Canadian Gazette. 

Perpetual Motion. — At Freeport, Illinois, a new industry is to be 
started. On a quarter-section of land an enterprising Kansas farmer will 
establish a thousand black cats, and five thousand rats on which to feed the 
cats, estimating that the cats will increase fifteen thousand in two years, their 
skins being worth a dollar each. The rats will multiply five times as fast as 
the cats, and will be used to feed the latter, while the skinned cats will furnish 
food to the rats. Thus has perpetual motion been discovered at last. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


735 


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Rochester, New York. 


736 


CURRENT NOTES. 


Hotel Mountaindale, Mount aind ale, Sullivan County, New 
York. — Sullivan County is noted for its healthfulness, beautiful scenery, and 
wonderful climate, which is refreshing and cool the hottest days in summer. 
The Hotel Mountaindale is renowned for its location, its excellent and liberal 
management, and the comfort and recreation that its equipment furnishes for 
the numerous guests who each year assemble at this delightful spot. 

The hotel is located on a one-hundred-acre farm, which supplies fresh butter, 
milk, cream, poultry, fruit, and vegetables ; with fish from the lake and the 
trout brook, which are situated directly in front of the hotel, and furnish boat- 
ing, fishing, and bathing. Mr. Gustave Gosselin, formerly chef of the Union 
Club, New York, will, as usual, have charge of the culinary arrangements: 
this in itself promises a bountiful menu. 

The casino, removed a short distance from the hotel, contains a dancing- 
room, billiard-rooms, bowling-alleys, etc. 

Terms exceedingly moderate. Special rates to guests remaining throughout 
the season. 

Mountaindale is one hundred miles from New York City, and is easily 
and cheaply reached over the New York, Ontario and Western Railroad, foot 
of West Forty-Second Street, New York. Mr. George M. Lynch, owner and 
proprietor, can be addressed at either Mountaindale or No. 1 Union Square, 
New York City. 

Some years ago the sect of Abstainers, or Bible Christians, who eat no meat 
and regard the killing of animals as sinful, built a somewhat pretentious church 
in Third Street, Philadelphia. The building is now occupied by a firm of pork- 
packers and sausage-makers. 

Fancy Prices for Bric-a-Brac. — There is always something useless 
which the rich will buy at fancy prices. A few years ago it was odd china. 
Lord Dudley, for example, giving thousands of pounds for a china ship, which 
a housemaid might break. Recently it was French furniture which had been 
used by some person of eminence, and to-day it seems to be rock crystal and 
other inferior precious stones. A vase of that substance, which is not specially 
beautiful, with enamelled gold mounting, was sold at the Spitzer sale in Paris 
for £2940, and a jasper cup, with similar mounting, for £1892. A smoky’^ 
rock crystal ewer went for £630, and a rock crystal goblet for £227. 

Things in rock crystal have the merit of durability, but the material limits 
rather than develops the artist’s skill. The constant deposit of millionaires in 
society tends, of course, to increase the demand for all things which cannot be 
reproduced ; but one wonders how great the reduction in price would be if any 
general misfortune fell on Europe, — a great war, for instance, or a great up- 
heaval from below. We claimed durability, by the way, for the translucent 
stones, but it was a hasty claim. Nine-tenths of the work in them, which must 
have accumulated in the old civilizations, has irretrievably perished, and, 
indeed, the learned have never ascertained the fate of the Roman emeralds and 
rubies . — London Spectator. 

Southard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butter- 
flies’ wings. He would often say that no one knew what he owed to those tiny 
insects. — S. Smiles. 


CVRRENT NOTES. 


737 


ANOTHER OPEN LETTER. 


Dear Sir : 


Philadelphia, April i, 1897. 


Many persons entertain the idea that life insurance of the reliable variety costs 
more than it should. A little reflection, however, goes far to persuade them that if there 
were any method by which cost could be measurably reduced, the company that would 
inaugurate it would soon have the bulk of the business, if not an entire monopoly. 

If there was any such method — one to overcome the law of mortality, to control 
the earnings of capital, and to regulate expenses — then, indeed, is it probable that the 
active competition for best results which has persisted for many years among thirty or 
more companies would have led to its discovery. 

Those who do not reflect are the many, and are the easy victims of unscrupu- 
lous agents, brokers, canvassers, and the like, who know no loyalty to any company and • 
are the enemies of all. The nerve of the wallet is extremely sensitive, and a specious 
and plausible proposition to furnish a policy for less than the insured now pays too often 
finds acceptance, wholly regardless of the quality of the article or its future cost. 

The average business man is far too busy to thoroughly study and understand the 
different plans of life insurance ; but his safety depends upon his understanding, when a 
change is suggested to him, the motive of the “ suggester,” which usually is to profit by 
the loss which he inflicts. 

Let us advise, in your interest, which is identical with ours, that when a proposal 
to change is made you at once consult with the agent through whom you were insured. 
He is competent to counsel. Failing this, address your inquiry direct to this office. 


Yours very truly. 


The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, 

Write for Rates Plans, etc. 9H -923-925 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 


BROWN’S 




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USE BROWN’S CAMPHORATED SAPONACEOUS DENTIFRICE. 

Price, Twenty=Five Cents a Jar. For Sale by all Druggists. 


A Michigan Romance. — An interesting story by Stanley Waterloo, also 
containing valuable information about the summer resorts in the North, will be 
mailed to any address on receipt of four cents to pay postage. Address D. G. 
Edwards, Passenger Traffic Manager, C. H. & D. Railway, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
VoL. LIX —45 


738 


CURRENT NOTES. 


Slanderers on All Fours. — In the kingdom of Poland there was 
formerly a law according to which any person found guilty of slander was com- 
pelled to walk on all fours through the streets of the town where he lived, ac- 
companied by the beadle, as a sign that he was disgraced and unworthy of the 
name of man. At the next public festival the delinquent was forced to appear 
crawling upon hands and knees underneath the banqueting-table and barking 
like a dog. Every guest was at liberty to give him as many kicks as he chose, 
and he who had been slandered must toward the end of the banquet throw 
a picked bone at the culprit, who, picking it up with his mouth, would leave 
the room on all fours. 

Ruling Passion in Death. — Canon Gore tells a striking story of a 
hardened professional pickpocket who found himself within sight of death and 
for the first time in his life had leisure to think. During a somewhat protracted 
illness the reality of the love of God was vividly borne in upon him, and he 
became, in the deepest sense, converted from darkness to light. He had re- 
ceived the sacrament and was in articulo mortis when the priest, who was reading 
the commendatory prayer by his bedside, heard a hoarse whisper in his ear, 
“ Look out for your watch.’’ As the clergyman raised his head the man lay 
dead with the watch in his hand. ^^The will,” said Canon Gore, ^^was not 
strong enough to resist the habitual instinctive motions of the body, yet was 
strong enough to protest against its own act with the voice.” — N'ew York Press. 

Not Always the Same. — “You don’t seem to care much for original 
ideas,” said the contributor, with a sneer, as he gathered up his manuscript. 

“No,” replied the zero-blooded editor: “we’d rather have good ones.” — 
Washington Star. 

A Substitute.— S cene, a collier’s cottage. 

Wife (leaving for the town, with a basket on her arm). — “ An’ dae ye think, 
John, that I’ve minded everything I’m to get when in the toon?” 

John. — “Ye micht mind to bring me in half an ounce of snuff.” 

“ ’Deed, no, John,” replied his better half. “ The times are too hard for 
sic extravagance. Ye maun jist tickle yer nose wi’ a straw.” — London Tit-Bits. 

The Story that amused Emerson. — Ralph Waldo Emerson was once 
greatly amused with the following anecdote : A lady, deeply veiled and dressed 
in mourning, was riding in a stage-coach in Vermont, opposite to whom sat a 
small, sharp-featured, black-eyed woman, who began catechising her thus: 
“Have you lost friends?” “ Yes, I have.” “ Was they near friends?” “ Yes, 
they was.” “How near?” “A husband and a brother.” “Where did they 
die?” “Down to Mobile.” “What did they die with?” “Yellow fever.” 
“Was they long sick?” “Not very.” “Was they seafarin’ men?” “Yes, 
they was.” “ Did you get their chists?” “ Yes, I did.” “ Was they hopefully 
pious?” “ I hope and trust they was.” “ Well, if you got their chists and they 
was hopefully pious, you have great reason to be thankful.” 

The stress laid on the “ chists” and the placing of their rescue before the 
piety of the lost husband and brother as reasons for thankfulness struck Emer- 
son as exceedingly characteristic of a certain class of Yankees and infinitely 
mirth-provoking. — Golden Rule. 


The June Number 

i-' 

OF 

LIPPINCOTT’S 

/ 

MAGAZINE, 

READY MAY S2. 

Will contain a Complete Novel entitled 

RS m GEHTLEMRH TOT. 


WILLIAM T. NICHOLS, 

Author of “My Strange Patient/' “A Whim and a Chance," etc. 


And the Usual Variety of Stories, Essays, 
Poems, etc. 

X, 


For List of Complete Novels contained in Former Numbers, see Next Page. 


THE COMPLETE NOVELS WHICH HAVE ALREADY APPEARED IN 

LIPPINCOTT’S MAGAZINE, 


AND WHICH ARE ALWAYS OBTAINABLE, ARE! 

No. 


No. 

353. Jason Hildreth’s Identity. - . Virna Woods 

352. Ray’s Recruit Captain Charles King 

351. Dead Selves . JuHa Magruder 

350. Under the Pacific .... Clarence Herbert New 
349. Stockings Pull of Money . Mary Kyle Dallas 
348. The Chase of an Heiress . . . Christian Reid 
347. An Interrupted Current . . Howard M. Yost 

346. The Crown Prince of Rexania. 

Edward S. Van Zile 
345. A Marital Liability. Elizabeth Phipps Train 

344. The Great “ K. <& A.” Train-Robbery. 

Paul Leicester Ford 
343. A Judicial Error .... Marion Manville Pope 
342. Prom Clue to Climax .... Will N. Harben 
341. An Impending Sword, Horace AnnesleyVachell 

340. Plotsam Owen Hall 

339. A Whim and a Chance . . William T. Nichols 
338. Ground-Swells .... Jeannette H. Walworth 
337. Mrs. Crichton’s Creditor . . Mrs. Alexander 
336. The Old Silver Trail . . . Mary E. Stickney 
335. In Sight of the Goddess. Harriet Riddle Davis 
334. My Strange Patient . . . William T. Nichols 

333. A Case in Equity Francis Lynde 

332. Little Lady Lee . . . Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron 
331. A Social Highwayman. Elizabeth Phipps Train 
330. The Battle of Salamanca. Benito Perez GaldOs 
329. The Lady of Las Cruces . . . Christian Reid 
328. Alain of Half dene . . . Anna Robeson Brown 
327. A Tame Surrender . . . Captain Charles King 
326. The Chapel of Ease . . Harriet Riddle Davis 

325. The Waifs of Pighting Rocks. 

Charles Mcllvaine 

324. Mrs. Hallam’s Companion. 

Mrs. Mary J. Holmes 

323. Dora’s Defiance Lady Lindsay 

322. A Question of Courage . . . Francis Lynde 

321. Captain Molly Mary A. Denison 

320. Sweetheart ‘Manette . . . Maurice Thompson 

319. Captain Close Captain Charles King 

318. The Wonder- Witch . . . . M. G. McClelland 
317. A Professional Beauty. Elizabeth Phipps Train 
316. The Plying Halcyon . . Richard Henry Savage 

315. A Desert Claim Mary B. Stickney 

314. The Picture of Las Cruces . . Christian Reid 

313. The Colonel Harry Willard French 

312. Sergeant Croesus .... Captain Charles King 
311. An Unsatisfactory Lover .... The Duches** 
310. The Hepburn Line . . . Mrs. Mary J. Holmes 
309. A Bachelor’s Bridal. . . . II. Lovett Cameron 
308. In the Midst of Alarms .... Robert Barr 
307. The Troublesome Lady . Patience Stapleton 
306. The Translation of a Savage. Gilbert Parker 

305. Mrs. Romney Rosa Nouchette Carey 

304. Columbus in Love . . George Alfred Townsend 
303. Waring’s Peril . . . Capt. Charles King, U.S.A. 

302. The Pirst Plight Julien Gordon 

301. A Pacific Encounter . . . Mary E. Stickney 

300. Pearce Amer son’s Will. 

Richard Malcolm Johnston 

299. More thanvKin .t . Mario^ Harland 

298. The Kiss of Gold , . ... . . . Kate Jordan 

297. The Doomswoman Gertrude Atherton 

296. The Martlet Seal. . . . Jeannette H. Walworth 

295. White Heron M. G. McClelland ' 

294. John Gray (A Kentucky Tale of the Olden Time). 

James Lane Allen 

293. The Golden Pleece .... Julian Hawthorne 
292 But Men Must Work . Rosa Nouchette Carey 
291. A Soldier’s Secret . Capt. Charles King, U.S.A. 


290. Roy the Royalist William Westall 

289. The Passing of Major Kilgore 

Young E. Allison 

288. A Pair Blockade-Breaker . . T. C. De Leon 

287. The Duke and the Commoner. 

Mrs. Poultney Bigelow 

286. Lady Patty The Duchess 

285. Carlotta’s Intended . . Ruth McEnery Stuart 
284. A Daughter’s Heart . Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron 
283. A Rose of a Hundred Leaves. Amelia E. Barr 
282. Gold of Pleasure . . . George Parsons Lathrop 

281. Vampires Julien Gordon 

280. Maiden’s Choosing . . . Mrs. Ellen Olney Kirk 
279. The Sound of a Voice . . Frederick S. Cozzens 

278. A Wave of Life Clyde Fitch 

277. The Light that Pailed . . Rudyard Kipling 
276. An Army Portia . . Capt. Charles King, U.S.A. 
275. A Laggard in Love . Jeanie Gwynne Bettany 
J174. A Marriage at Sea W. Clark Russell 

2;3. The Mark of the Beast. 

Katharine Pearson Woods 

272. What Gold Cannot Buy . . Mrs. Alexander 
271. The Picture of Dorian Gray . . Oscar Wilde 
270. Circumstantial Evidence . Mary E. Stickney 
269. A Sappho of Green Springs . . . Bret Harte 


268 . A Cast for Fortune Christian Reid 

267. Two Soldiers .... Capt. Charles King, U.S.A. 
266. The Sign of the Pour .... A Conan Doyle 
265. Millicent and Rosalind . . Julian Hawthorne 

264. All He Knew John Habberton 

263. A Belated Revenge. Dr. Robt. Montgomery Bird 

262. Creole and Puritan T. C. De Leon 

261. Solarion Edgar Fawcett 


260. An Invention of the Enemy. W. H. Babcock 
259. Ten Minutes to Twelve . M. G. McClelland 
258. A Dream of Conquest . . General Lloyd Brice 
257. A Chain of Errors . . . '. Mrs. E. W. Latimer 
256. The Witness of the Sun . . . Am51ie Rives 

255. Bella-Demonia Selina Dolaro 

254. A Transaction in Hearts . . Edgar Saltus 

253. Hale- Weston M. Elliot Seawell 

251. Earthlings Grace King 

250. Queen of Spades, and Autobiography. E. P. Roe 
249. Herod and Mariamne. 

A Tragedy Am61ie Rives 

248. Mammon Maude Howe 

247. The Y ellow Snake Wm. Henry Bishop 

246. Beautiful Mrs. Thorndyke. 

^ Mrs. Poultney Bigelow 

246. The Old Adam H. H. Boyesen 

244. The Quick or the Dead?,. . . Am61ie Rives 
243. Honored in the Breach . . . Julia Magruder 
242. The Spell of Home. 

After the German of E. Werner. Mrs. A. L. Wister 
241. Check and Counter-Check. 

Brander Matthews and George H. Jessop 
239. The Terra-Cotta Bust . . Virginia W. Johnson 
238. Apple Seed and Brier Thorn. Louise Stockton 
237. The Red Mountain Mines. Lew Vanderpoole 


236. A Land of Love Sidney Luska 

235. At Anchor Julia Magruder 

234. The Whistling Buoy .... Charles Barnard 

232. Douglas Duane Edgar Fawcett 

231. Kenyon’s Wife Lucy C. Lillie 

230. A Self-Made Man M. G. McClelland 

229. Sinfire Julian Hawthorne 


228. Miss Defarge .... Frances Hodgson Burnett 


SINGLE NUMBERS, 25 


227. Brueton’s Bayou John Habberton 

CENTS. $3.00 PER YEAR. 


J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY’S 
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OF 

NEW PUBLICATIONS 


The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States. 

Showing that it is a Development of Progressive History, and not an isolated docu- 
ment struck off at a given time or an imitation of English or Dutch forms of 
Government. By Sydney George Fisher, author of “The Making of Penn- 
sylvania.” i2mo. Polished buckram, $1.50. 

Previous histories of the Constitution have described its adoption in 1788, and 
its changes or development since that date. The few works which have touched on 
its sources or origin have treated it as invented by the convention which framed it, 
or have sought in European countries for forms of government which were like it or 
might have suggested its various provisions. 

Mr. Fisher has adopted an entirely different line of research, and has traced; 
back every material clause in the Constitution through previous American documents 
and forms of government in colonial times. He reaches the conclusion, supported 
by abundant evidence, that the Constitution is a purely native product, developed 
step by step on American soil, through more than one hundred and fifty years of the 
colonial period. 

It is the first book of its kind, and a complete history of colonial government 
and American ideas of government previous to the 5^ear 1788. 

The Railway Builder. 

A Hand-Book for Estimating the Probable Cost of American Railway Construction 
and Equipment. By William Jasper Nicolls, M.Am.Soc.C.E., author of 
“The Stor}^ of American Coals,” etc. Fifth Edition, Revised and enlarged. 
i6mo. Limp leather, i6mo, for the pocket, $2.00. 

In the present edition the entire work has been carefully revised and brought 
up to date. It has also received many additions, the page has been enlarged, and a 
new form of binding adopted, so as to render the volume suitable both for the 
library and pocket. 

The author has added fifteen years to his professional life, and has learned many 
useful facts, which, as far as practicable, are set forth in this edition for the benefit of 
the unprofessional reader, for time has shown that to such the book has been useful. 

Capitalists who put th-eir money in American railways, contractors who build 
them, and the host of practical men operating them, will find in the pages of the book 
plain and simple directions for estimating on the first cost or for renewals, while the 
young engineer will find much that heretofore has been covered with many formulas 
and tedious analyses. 


I 


J. B. Lippincott Company’s May Announcements. 

Siam 

ON THE Meinam, FROM THE GuLF TO Ayuthia, together with Three Romances 
illustrative of Siamese Life and Customs. By Maxwell Sommerville, Pro- 
fessor of Glyptology, University of Pennsylvania. With a map and fifty full- 
page illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, ornamental gilt, uncut edges, $3.00. 

A record of a trip made by Mr. Sommerville in the field where many of the 
gems with which he deals have their origin. He is a practised and observant 
traveller, and he seeks untrodden paths in the Orient, describing them with the 
force, vividness, and picturesqueness of an author trained in scientific research. 


How to L 

AND Why we do not Live Longer. I 
Bureau of Pensions, Department of 
Cloth, $1.00. 

“ Dr. Hayes writes with good sense and gives 
sound, practical advice on matters that, if 
heeded, would inevitably lead to length of days. 
As a rule, we give all such books the cold 
shoulder ; but after reading here and there in 
the doctor’s book we became interested because 
the advice given is rational and comprehensible, 
and entirely devoid of professional affectation.” 
— Buffalo Commercial. 

Water and it 


ive Longer 

►y J. R. Hayes, M.D., Medical Examiner 
the Interior, Washington, D.C. 12 mo. 

“Having read Dr. J. R. Hayes’s book, ‘How 
to Live Longer,’ I heartily commend it as able, 
useful, and timely. Its wide circulation will be 
to me a gratification. I feel grateful for the 
opportunity of reading it. 

‘ ‘ Signed, 

“ T. De Witt Taemage. 

“Washington, April i, 1897.” 

Purification. 


A Handbook for the use of Local Authorities, Sanitary Officers, and others interested 
in Water Supply. By Samuel Ridcal, D.Sc. (Lond.). With numerous Illus- 
trations and Tables. i2mo. Cloth, $2.50. 

To all who are interested in the subject of Water Supply this book is meant to 
appeal, and by its perusal some insight into the methods of research and the inter- 
pretation of results will be attained. 


The Calculus 

For Engineers and Physicists. Integration and Differentiation, with Applica- 
tions to Technical Problems, with Classified Reference Tables of Integrals and 
Methods of Integration. By Professor Robert H. Smith. With diagrams. 
i2mo. Cloth, $3.00. 

This work aims at the presentation of two leading features in the study and 
application of the higher mathematics. In the first place, the development of the 
rationale of the subject is based on essentially concrete conceptions, and no appeal is 
made to what may be termed rational imagination extending beyond the limits of 
man’s actual physical and physiological experience. Thus, no use is anywhere made 
of series of infinite numbers of things or of infinitely small quantities. The author 
believes that the logical development is both sound and complete without reference 
to these ideas. In the second place, a set of eleven classified tables of integrals and 
methods of integration have been arranged in such manner as seemed best adapted 
to facilitate rapid reference, and thus relieve the mind engaged in practical mathe- 
matical work of the burden of memorizing a great mass of formulas. 


J. B. Lippincott Company’s May Announcements. 

The Elements of Electro-Chemistry treated Experimentally. 

By Dr. Robert Liipke, Headmaster of the Municipal Dorothea Realgymnasium and 
Lecturer in the Imperial School of Posts and Telegraphs, Berlin. Translated 
from the Second Revised and Enlarged Edition, by M. M. Pattison Muir, 
M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. With 
fifty-four figures in the text. Crown octavo. Cloth, $2.50. 

A second edition of this work was called for a few months after the appearance 
of the book. This showed that there was want of a book setting forth succinctly 
the most important parts of electro-chemistry, and that the method of the book, 
which deduces the laws and elucidates the theories from the basis of experiments, 
had met with approval. Those readers who wish to make a preliminary survey of 
electro-chemistry before they enter on the study of the more detailed works will 
receive the second edition of this book with favor. The author has enlarged the 
first edition here and there and made it more complete. 


The Printing of Textile Fabrics. 

A Practical Manual on the Printing of Cotton, Woollen, Silk, and half Silk Fabrics. 
By C. F. Seymour Roth well, Fellow of the Chemical Society ; Member of 
the Society of Chemical Industry, etc., etc. With plates and illustrations in the 
text, and specimens of printed fabrics. Crown octavo. Cloth, $6.50. 

The above work is intended to form a companion volume to the well-known 
Manual of Dyeing, by MM. Knecht, Rawson, and Loewenthal. As the chemical 
properties of the various mordants, coloring matters, etc., used in the textile indus- 
tries are exhaustively treated in that work, it has not been considered necessary to 
include here information of a purely chemical or theoretical character. The author 
accordingly endeavored to confine himself as far as possible to the practical side of 
the subject. The processes and machinery described are principally those of which 
he has had actual practical experience. Where information has been culled from 
other works, the source has in each case been duly acknowledged. 


Getting Gold. 

A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners, and Students. By J. C. F. Johnson, 
F.G.S.jA.I.M.E., author of “ Practical Mining,” “The Genesiology of Gold,” 
etc. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

Some six years ago the author published a small book entitled ‘ ‘ Practical 
Mining,” designed specially for the use of those engaged in the always fascinating, 
though not as invariably profitable, pursuit of getting gold. Of this, ten thousand 
copies were sold, nearly all in Australasia, and the work is now out of print. The 
Loyidon Mining Journal of September 9, 1891, said of it, “We have seldom seen a 
book in which so much interesting matter, combined with useful information, is 
given in so small a space.” The author’s mining experience extends back thirty 
years, and he therefore ventures to believe with some degree of confidence, that 
the information, original or compiled, which the book contains, will be found both 
useful and profitable to those who are in any capacity interested in the gold-mining 
industry. 


8 


J. B. Lippincott Company’s May Announcements. 

Lippmcott^s Medical Dictionary. 

A Complete Vocabulary of the Terms used in Medicine and the Allied Sciences, with 
their Pronunciation, Etymology, and Signification, including much Collateral 
Information of a Descriptive and Encyclopaedic Character. Prepared on the 
basis of ‘‘Thomas’s Complete Medical Dictionary,” by Ryland W. Greene, 
B.A., with the editorial collaboration of John Ashhurst, Jr., M.D., LL.D., 
Barton Professor of Surgery and Professor of Clinical Surgery in the University 
of Pennsylvania; George A. Piersol, M.D., Professor of Anatomy in the 
University of Pennsylvania; Joseph P. Remington, Ph.M., F.C.S., Professor 
of Theory and Practice of Pharmacy in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. 
Complete in one imperial octavo volume of about iioo pages. Cloth, sheep, 
half Russia. Sold by subscription only. 

It has been the aim of editors and publishers in producing an entirely new and 
enlarged edition of “Thomas’s Medical Dictionary” to bring the book abreast of 
the times, not only by presenting all that is latest and best in medical literature, but 
also by developing that material according to the most approved methods of modern 
lexicography. It was thought best not to trust the work to a single hand, but by 
selecting a corps of collaborators whose names are authoritative in their several 
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ment which could not otherwise be attained. The medical profession generally will 
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The plan throughout has bee7i to give complete^ accurate^ and useful information co7i- 
cerning every medical term that a student, physician, or general reader would be likely to 
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As the essence of a dictionary lies in its definitio7is, the 7it7nost care has been expe7ided 
in 7^endering this part of the work particularly excellent. The consta7it endeavor has been 
to make the explanation of each word distmct and full without verbosity. When a word 
has several different meanings, the differences are carefully marked, clearness being 
promoted by the use of numbers to distinguish the different senses. In addition to 
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ings have received treatment of a more or less encyclopaedic nature : thus, under 
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drug, some account of its action, therapeutic uses, official preparations, and dose ; 
under the chief diseases, an idea of their symptoms, cause, and treatment. In every 
case a complete list of the synon 3 ^ms of a word is given after its definition. This 
combination of encyclopcBdic matter with an unabridged vocabulary constitutes 07ie of the 
features of Thomas's Dictionary. 

The system of mdicating or expressing pronunciation adopted in this work is new 
and origmal. It is based on the scie7itific principles of pho7ietics as recognized by the best 
Imguists of this and other coimtries. 

4 


J. B. Lippincott Company’s May Announcements. 

The Ape, the Idiot, and Other People. 

By W. C. Morrow. i2mo. Ornamentally bound, deckle edges, $1.25. 


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By L. Cope Cornford, author of ‘‘ Captain Jacobus.” i2mo. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

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His Native Wife. 


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5 


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Dr. Luttrell's First Patient. 


A new copyright Story. By Rosa Nouchette Carey, author of '‘The Mistress of 
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When the Century was New. 

A Novel. By Charles Conrad Abbott, M.D. i2mo. Cloth, uncut, $1.00. 

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Into an Unknown World. 


By John Strange Winter, author of “Aunt Johnnie,” “The Truth-Tellers,” “A 
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J. B. Lippincott Company’s May Announcements. 

BOOKS IN PRESS. 

r * 

A Manual of Legal Medicine. 

For the Use of Practitioners and Students of Medicine and Law. By Justin Herold, 
A.M., M.D. 

The object of a great majority of medico-legal students, even of those who pursue 
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the leading facts which serve for its foundation. To facilitate in the accomplishment 
of this purpose is the object of the present work. ' 

The Origin of Disease. 

By Arthur V. Meigs, M.D. 

The author’s intention is not to write a complete treatise upon the causation 
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The Roller Bandage and Surgical Dressing. 

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The plan which has been adopted in this book is to teach by numerous illustra- 
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Mammalian Anatomy 

AS A Preparation for Human and Comparative Anatomy. By Horace Jayne, 
M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology ; Pro- 
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The University of Pennsylvania Illustrated. 

One hundred and eighteen pages. Oblong quarto. Handsomely bound in cloth, 
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The Yersin Phono-Rhythmic Method of French Pronunciation, 

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French and English. By Marie and Jeanne Yersin. 

^ v>..- . L - T c . 

Guavas the Tinner. 


By S. Baring-Gould. 


7 


LIPPINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


• • To the Public • • 


CHAMBERS’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA 

-•-i1897 EDITION i-i- 

is a notable improvement on all other encyclopaedias. It is as near perfect as human 
skill and modern progress can make it. The order and method of treatment make 
its information more readily accessible than any other work of reference. It is the 
standard of excellence the wide world over, being thoroughly international in charac- 
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subjects pertaining to this country than other encyclopaedias originating and edited 
here. It is not the highest in price, but the highest in scholarly treatment. 

All its subjects are so arranged that the uneducated, as well as the learned, can, 
without difficulty, find the information required, and the subject of each article is 
treated in such a lucid, simple, and popular style that the meaning is easily appre- 
hended even in the discussion of abstruse themes. The information conveyed is like- 
wise of a practical character, adapted to prepare young people for the battle of life. 
These qualifications alone make this new edition an absolute necessity in every home. 

No one, however busy, can afford to be a day without a first-class, up-to-date ency- 
clopaedia. Every one that reads, every one that mingles in society, is constantl}^ meet- 
ing with allusions to subjects on which he needs and desires further information. In 
conversation, questions are continually arising which no man, well-read or not, can 
always satisfactorily answer. If the encyclopaedia is at hand it will be consulted, and 
not only is the curiosity gratified, but also the stock of knowledge increased, and 
perhaps ideas are suggested that may directly contribute to the business success of the 
party concerned. 

Here is a rare opportunity to give the boys a chance, and the girls, too. We claim 
emphatic superiority for it in every respect, as it is beyond a doubt the most satis- 
factory Encyclopaedia now published. No other has ever excelled it in literary quality. 
We invite a careful examination of the volumes, and critical comparison with other 
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these statements. 

The articles in the various departments have been contributed by over looo writers 
familiar with the results of learned research, scientific investigation, and literary culture. 

Subscribers to Chambers’s EncyceopaEdia (1897 Edition) may therefore feel satis- 
fied that they will be possessors of a work that will give them, in a nutshell, accurate 
information upon every imaginable topic, and for those who desire to follow up the 
subject, a list of the highest authorities is appended to the more important articles. 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Publishers, 

PHILADELPHIA, PA. 


8 


,LIPPINC0TT'8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER, 


A FEW QUESTIONS ANSWERED ON SUBJECTS 

OF GENERAL INTEREST 

BY 

Chambers’s Encyclopaedia 

(1897 EDITION.) 


‘ / 

It covers the whole field of human knowledge. All its articles are clear, comprehensive!, and 
up-to-date. 

THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS are suggestive and interesting. They are not selected to em- 
brace the scholarly articles contained in the work, but will serve to convey some idea of the scope, 
excellence, and practical value of the work. 

The numbers after each question refer to the volume and page of the New Chambers’s Ency- 
clopaedia where the answer may be found. 


What is the legal acceptance of a bill of exchange 
in England and the United States? Vol. I., page 
29. 

What is ambergris, and why is it worth its weight 
in gold? Vol. I., page 210. 

What race of men only average 4 feet 3 inches in 
height, and where are they found ? Vol. I., page 

85. 

What building had 20,000 men employed on its con- 
struction for over 22 years? Vol. I., page 95. 

What peculiar creature, half bird and half quadru- 
ped, exists in Australia? Vol. I., page 590. 

Give the names of all the great men who were assas- 
sinated since B.C. 44 up to 1896. Vol. I., page 503. 

In what year was the first bank established in the 
United States? Vol. I., page 713. 

Explain the meaning of Bacteria. Vol. I., page 645. 

Where is the bird-catching spider found, and how 
large is it? Vol. II., page 175. 

Where is Birnam Woods, that Shakespeare immor- 
talized in “Macbeth”? Vol. II., page 180. 

Where is the tree found upon which bread grows, 
and the bark is made into clothing by the natives? 
Vol. II. page 412. 

What is a Biretta? Vol. II., page 176. 

Who was the foremost orator of ancient Rome, and 
what are his most famous speeches? Vol. III., page 
248. 

What celebrated diamond is preserved among the 
national jewels of Paris, estimated to be now worth 
$2,400,000? Vol. III., page 792. 

When was .slavery finally abolished in Cuba? Vol. 
III., page 603. 

. Where is the celebrated Castle of Chillon, immor- 
talized by Byron’s “Prisoner of Chillon.” Vol. III., 
page 1 81. 

What Central American Governments constitute the 
Greater Republic of Central America, as officially rec- 
ognized by President Cleveland, December 23, 1896. 
Vol. III., page 64. 

What is the name of the bird that makes the edible 
nest, prized as a luxurious dish by the Chinese, who 
pay as much as $7.00 for a single nest ? Vol. IV., page 
198. 

What epoch is the first human point in the history 
of Ancient Egypt? Vol. IV., page 238. 


What State adopted electrocution as a method of 
capital punishment in 1896? Vol. IV., page 495. 

What was the origin of Hamlet, the hero of Shake- 
speare’s greatest tragedy? and what is the story of 
Hamlet? Vol. V., page 533. 

What city in Ireland did the Lynch law first origi- 
nate in ? and in what year? Vol. V., page 70. 

What is meant by the term Horseless Carriage? 
Vol. V., page 796. 

Who was the oldest Greek historian, .styled the 
“Father of History”? Vol. V., page 391. 

Describe the gila monster ; and where is he found 
in this country? Vol. V., page 208. 

How did the vote for McKinley, November 3, 1896, 
compare with that of other Presidential candidates? 
Vol. VI., page 777. 

Name the city most beautifully situated in the 
whole world. Vol. VH., page 387. 

What is meant by morganatic marriage ? Vol. VH., 
•page 307. 

How long was Nansen absent on the expedition from 
which he returned in 1896? Vol. VH., page 383. 

What is Palaeography, and what has it accomplished ? 
Vol. VH., page 702. 

What metal is set on fire by being thrown into water ? 
Vol. VHI., page 352. 

The Rosetta Stone furnished the key with which to 
decipher ancient hieroglyphics. How? Vol. VHI., 
page 810. 

What country has a railroad that uses only a single 
rail for passengers and traffic? Vol. VHI., page 557. 

The Irish potato is not Irish by birth. What coun- 
try did it come from, and when was it introduced into 
Europe? Vol. VHI., page 354. 

What city has a beautiful tower, 180 feet in height, 
leaning 14 feet out of the perpendicular? Vol. VHI., 
page 195. 

What chemical is 250 times sweeter than sugar? 
Vol. IX., page 62. 

When was Sir William Siemens born, and where? 
What discovery did he make by the use of electricity ? 
Vol. IX., page 439. 

Where was Stanley, the great explorer, born ? Vol. 
IX., page 681. 

On what date, and in what month, was Utah ad- 
mitted as a State in 1896. Vol. X., page 409. 


See next page for a fuller description of the special introductory offer of the 

New Chambers’s Encyclopaedia in connection with Lippincott’s Magazine. 


9 


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Electrocution adopted by Ohio, July i, 1896. 

Cuban Revolution. 

The New Greater Republic of Central America recog- 
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McKinley and Hobart. 

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Important Books for a Yachtsman’s Library 


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12 



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A Shakespearian Encyclopaedia. 


VARIORUM EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. 

EDITED BY 

HORACE HOWARD FURNESS, Ph.D., LL.D., L.H.D. 

Royal octavo volumes. Superfine toned paper. Extra cloth, uncut edges, gilt top, "'"'4 
$4.00 per volume. Half morocco, gilt top, in sets only, $50.00. ’ i ' J 

■' '4 

MIDSUMMER-NIGHT’S DREAM. ' I 

“Horace Howard Furness is probably the most thorough Shakespearian student who | 

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THE TEMPEST. 

“hike its predecessors, it will be welcomed by every one critically interested in the 
text of Shakespeare. When we say that the volume embraces some four hundred and 
sixty pages, it may be inferred how large the mass of illustrative matter has here been 
gathered together. Dr. Furness is facile princeps as an editor, and what he has brought to 
bear in elucidation of the text is both judicious and exhaustive.” — North British Daily 
Mail. 

AS YOU LIKE IT. 

“America has the honor of having produced the very best and most complete edition, 
so far as it has gone, of our great national poet. For text, illustration, commentarj’, and 
criticism it leaves nothing to be desired.” — Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine. 

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

“A large and extremely handsome volume, with every perfection of mechanical features, 
containing the text of the first folio, with notes that enable one to study Shakespeare as 
the Greek poets are studied, weighing every phrase, every word, every syllable.” — New 
York World. 

OTHELLO. 

“The whole is a library boiled down into a volume, and for ninety-nine readers and 
students out of a hundred infinitely more convenient and useful than the multitudinous 
original, even if the latter were accessible to them ; and it will be only now and then that 
the hundredth man will want to go from the one handy book to the sources whence its 
varied contents have been drawn.” — Boston Literary World. 

KING LEAR. 

“The most indefatigable and enthusiastic lover of Shakespeare could not obtain an 
equal amount of literary light without spending years in ransacking the libraries, even if 
the libraries of this country furnished the material at all, which ‘is very doubtful.” — 
Harper's Monthly Magazine. 

HAMLET. Two Volumes. 

“We have not space to do full justice to Mr. Furness’s volume. Every instalment of 
it is of great value, and complete as regards the play treated. It is a source of niuch satis- 
faction to find that this, the most exhaustive work on any one of Shakespeare’s plays, 
comes from America.” — London Athenceum. 

MACBETH. 

“Columns might be written on the value of this work to the Shakespearian student 
and scholar, but it only becomes necessary to say that it is invaluable.” — Boston EvenUig 
Traveller. 

ROMEO AND JULIET. 

“This is the most valuable work recently contributed to our Shakespearian literature, 
and America has the honor of producing the best and completest edition of Shakespeare’s 
immortal plays.” — Birmingham (England) Daily Post. 


J. B. Lippincott Company, Publishers, 

715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia. 


13 



LIPPINCOTT8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


THE LOTOS LIBRARY. 

Issued at Intervals# 

Illustrated# I6mo# Buckram^ 75 cents# 

“ The Lotos Library is becoming almost a guarantee of excellence, so well chosen are the tales 
which compose it.” — Detroit Free Press. 

“The stories in this entertaining series are always carefully selected, and the books are ‘just the 
thing’ to be tucked into a travelling bag, or for that matter a pocket.” — Buffalo Camniercial. 

By ELIZABETH PHIPPS TRAIN# 

A Social Hig:hwayman# 

SEVENTH EDITION. 

“A lively charm lights one through the whole to the 
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** It is certainly a delightful creation, full of genuine 
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The Golden Fleece. 

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is plenty of incident and clever character drawing; the 
story is bright and pleasing,” — Boston Times. 

By ELIZABETH PHIPPS TRAIN# 

The Autobiography 
of a Professional Beauty# 

THIRD EDITION. 

“ The story is very bright from start to finish, and gives 
some lively pictures of London society life.** — Boston Home 
Journal. 

** This is a profoundly interesting love-story. Its plot 
is simple, natural, and life-like— often approaching the 
tragic.** — Chicago Inter- Ocean. 

By MARIE CORELLI. 

Jane. 

“The author draws an admirable sketch of a demure 
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ubiquitous licker of royal boots* from her peaceful home in 
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the artificiality of social heights, and, dismissing her new 
surroundings, returns to the dell a wiser woman. It is a 
sympathetic tale, full of admirable contrast between the 
old-fashioned and the new.” — Washington Times. 

By HARRIET RIDDLE DAVIS. 

In Sight of the Goddess. 

A Tale of Washington Life. 

“ One of the brightest little stories which has been pub- 
lished this season.** — Hartford Post. 

“ It is a very charming love story, the scene of which is 
laid in Washington, and it is replete with brilliant pictures ‘ 
of social and official life in our national capital.” — Boston 
Home Journal. 

By CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, 
U.S.A. 

A Tame Soffcndcr. 

“ The ever charming Lotos Library from the Lippincott 
Company, issues as the latest attraction Captain Charles 
King’s * A Tame Surrender.* It is a story full of nerve and 
exciting situations, and characterized by all of the clever- 
" ness with which the talented author infuses his work.” — 
Buffalo Commercial. 

By ROBERT BUCHANAN. 

A Marriage by Capture. 

A Romance of To-Day. 

“The characters are clear, bold, and strongly drawn, 
and the story dramatic from beginning to end.” — Cleveland 
World. 

“ The dialogue is bright, the plot is finely developed, and 
there are no dull pages in the story.” — Boston Advertiser. 

By T. JENKINS HAINS. 
Captain Gore's Courtship. 

** Here is a thrilling sea story in handy form. It is a 
narrative of travel, adventure, and love.” — Richmond 
Dispatch. 

“ As the title implies, it is a love tale, but it is one out 
of the common, for the courtship takes place on board a 
sailing vessel, and the hero of the affair is only a second 
mate of the crew.” — Boston Times. 

Other volumes will be published from time to time. 

Publishers# J# B# LIPPINCOTX COM.PANY, Philadelphia# 


14 



LIPPINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


Why We Punctuate; 

OR. 

Reason fs. Rule in the Use of Marks. 

This is a book that tells v^hy marks of punctuation are used. 

It tells vihat marks say to the reader — what meanings they have. 

It shows that one cannot read understandingly or write clearly without a knowledge of the uses of marks. 
It shows that a knowledge of marks enables one to extract from written and printed language its exact 
meaning, and the nice shades of thought that, in the absence of such knowledge, must often escape the reader. 

It shows that punctuation is an integral part of written and printed language, and that at least the 
principal marks should, and may, be used by every writer as automatically as one uses proper verb forms. 


With a Chapter on Business 
Letter Writing. 

BY A JOURNALIST. 


EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES 


“ The book is an excellent one to take up in leisure half- 
hours; for punctuation, like the proper use of words, does 
not ‘ come by nature.’ San Francisco Chronicle. 

“With journalistic instinct, the author has sought the 
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what previous authors have said, he has simply told why 
marks are used.’’ — Philadelphia Press. 

“ The author takes the ground that the use of a mark of 
punctuation is determined by its meaning, and the meaning 
of the language it governs. He elucidates these meanings 
clearly, concisely, and logically. The book may be said to 
be the only one available which gives an exhaustive treat- 
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and intelligently set forth.”— Detroit Free Press. 

“The subject of punctuation seldom receives sufficient 
attention in our schools and colleges, and its importance is 
so great that such an intelligent discussion of it as that con- 
tained in these pages deserves commendation. It is sur- 
prising how much even educated persons, and even those 
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— The Congregationalist, Boston. 


“The author writes intelligently and clearly, and illus- 
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book of value.’’ — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

“There is no doubt but that this treatise w’ill stimulate 
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“ I like the ground it takes that punctuation is not a piece 
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part of composition as is the choice of words.’’— F. 
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“ The whole problem is reduced to the fundamental prin- 
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commended.’’— Independent, New York. 


Rrice, !Post-pa.ici, - - $1.00. 


THE LANCET PUBLISHING COMPANY, 7J2-7J3 Lumber Exchange, Minneapolis, Minn. 


Send your name for a Souvenir 
of the Works of Eugene Field, 

FIELD.asFLOWERS 

€be €uam Tield monument Souvenir 

The most beautiful Art Production of the cen- 
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tured for $7.00. For sale at book stores, or sent 
prepaid on receipt of $1.10. The love offering to 
the Child’s Poet Laureate, published by the Com- 
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and to care for the family of the beloved poet. 
Eugene Field Monument Souvenir Fund, 

180 Monroe Street, Chicago, IIU 


I Newspaper Clippings, i 

M Cuttings from carefully-selected lists of thousMnds of ^ 
m daily and weekly newspapers ; material for speeches, 

^ essays, etc. ; material for trade-papers, addresses for 
^ business houses for cataloging, etc.- Send for further 
^ data to ffiig England Newspaper Bureau, 

Box 186 L, Boston, Mass. 


Jacob Lyons, Mgr. 


New York, Fort Edward. 

Collegiate Institute for Young Women 

AND Girls. Established 1854. For Illustrated Catalogue, 
address Jos. E. King, D.D., President. 


PLAYS 


Dialogues, Speakers for School, 
Club and Parlor. Catalogue free. 
T. S. DENISON, Fubllsher, Chicago, 111. 


* When arranging your next 

TOUR TO EUROPE 

either independent travel or with escorted party 

REMEMBER 

that the best advantages and most reliable information are 
obtained from 

THOS. COOK & SON, 

261 and 1225 Ilrondway, New York. 

828 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, 382 Washington St.. Boston. 


« DC liave in stock or can 
K A K I furnish on short notice books, 
magazine articles, and infor- 
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“ Out-of-print” ||9 II books a specialty. 
Literary Light $1 a year ; sample 

copy IOC. D a 

Old Book Store, 245 4th |%l il Iw ^ 

Av. S., Minneapolis, Minn. ViVv 


15 



LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 



^ Issues Lite Insurance Policies for CHILDREN, WOMEN, and 1 

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JOHN F. DRYDEN, President. Home Office: Newark, N.J. 


16 


LIPPIJSCOTT'S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


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Goods sent for inspection. 
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Sterling Nail Polisher, $1.00. 

17 



LIPPINCOTT'8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


4 


Syracuse 
Bicycles 

4 are successful because they present the rare 

5 combination of 


4 

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STRENGTH, SPEED, 
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SYRACUSE CYCLE COMPANY, 
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t 


Metropolitan Ag:ents : The H* H* Kiffe Co^^ 523 Broadway^ New York 


18 




LIPPINCOTl^S MAGAZINE ADVERTllSER. 



19 


LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


«e.EP T4 s 


fVEEDERTfYCiBMETER 


Does the 


M Business 


ALWAYS RELIABLE AND ACCURATE 
WHETHER YOU RIDE ONE MILE 
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BOOKLET FREE. 

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HYGIENIC SADDLES 

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20 


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LIPPINCO TT‘ 3 MA GAZINE A D VERTISER. 




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21 







LIPPINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER, 




Throws a strong 
light 50 feet. Stays 
lit. Has head and 
fork bracket 
Finely ground lens 
Full nickel 
Riveted throughout 
Reversible fount 


It is made by the 

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Miami Cycle & M’Fg Co., Middletown, 0. 


22 


lippijvcott's magazine advertiser. 




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E. L. LOMAX, General Passenger and Ticket Agent, 

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23 



L1PPINCOTT8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 



Ik, 


Designed by Mtinger. Built by 
skilled workmen under his super- 
vision. It's the bicycle you have 
been waiting and longing for. 

For Men and Women* Tandems, 
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To further introduce the magazine into new families. 

THE COLUMBIAN today has the largest circulation of 
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OnCPIAl I addition to the above grand prizes we shall give away 
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U MBT AN until January 1, 1898, a Prizeliudset FREE . sent 
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up your list at once and send two dimes or 25c. in stamps. 
Address The Columbian, 13-17 Otis St*, Boston, Mass* 


Do You Want a ^ 
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THE 

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24 







LIP FIX CO TTS MA GAZINE A D VER TISER. 



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REGINA MUSIC BOX COMPANY, RAHWAY, N.J. 





CYCLE 

SADDLES 

ARE MADE BY THE 

“ Makers of Most 

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ROCHESTER, N. Y. 


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he 


25 



LJPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 



^ Steams Bicycles 


S&s 






fj 






(^| HAT Shakespcrc is to the poets 
the Steams Special is to bicy- 
cles* Its characteristics are narrow- 
tread, 4 inches ; its lightness, 20 lbs* ; 
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away qualities* 

It^s just as much superior to most 
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$125*00 is the price* 

6* C* Steams & Co*, Syracuse, 

Tinkham Cycle Co., 

New York Agents, 306-310 W. 59th St. 



TfT '^•5- ''!# 5- '-.f 5* 

I ANY HOLE 


TlT 

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BIG or LITTLE 


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TiT 

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the road by 


in the 


Dunlop 

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There are more DUNLOP TIRES in use 
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They cost nothing on a new wheel. 
Insist on having DUNLOPS. 


# 

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Catalogue free, from the 

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4*44*44*44*44*44*44*44*44*44*4' 


26 







LIPPINCOTT'8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 



Practically Puncture-Proof f 


[NSIST upon having them on your wheels. Service and com- 
fort insured at NO GREATER EXPENSE. 

Especially adapted to those who ride with their handle bars up, 
and to women who are unable to repair tires. 


Made by L. 6. Chase St Co. 

J29 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON. 

pppp Send US your address and name of this magazine anJ re wilt maiiyou, PDFP 
IIILL the popular sketch book "Mr. Van Cycle’s Experience ” ill 'trated. rilLL 


0 / 

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NEW YORk 
338 Broadway 

CHICAGO 
192 Van Buren St. 

PHILA. 

917 Arch St. 





OUR^ 
BICYCLES 


** It took just two weeks from the very day we wrote for first circular.” 

XT r ^ wants to introduce his TEAS, SPICES 

1/1/ f f hifj f* and BAKING POWDER, You can help 
^ ^ p^y y^^j well. 

Just go among your friends and sell a mixed order amounting in total to 
175 lbs. for a Ladies’ High-Grade Bicycle; or sell 75 lbs. for a Boys’ Bicycle; 
100 lbs. for a Girls’ Bicycle; 200 lbs. for a Gentlemen’s High-Grade Bicycle; 30 
lbs. for a Fairy Tricycle; 50 lbs. for a Waltham Gold Watch and Chain or a 
Decorated Dinner Set; 25 lbs. for a Solid Silver Watch and Chain; 10 lbs. for 
a Solid Gold Ring; 10 lbs. for a Camera; 25 lbs. for a Type Writer;" 90 lbs. for 
a Sewing Machine; 25 lbs. for an Autoharp. 

These articles are within the reach of many Ladies and Gentlemen and 
of many bright Boys and Girls. Mr. Baker pays the express or freight 
if cash is sent with order. Write your full address on postal for Cata- 
logue, Order- Sheet and particulars, and mail it to 

W. G. BAKER - (Dept. J ), - SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 




SUCH IS FAHE 


That Millions 




No Fire, Smoke, or Heat. Absolutely Safe. Send 5 stamps 

lor cat- 
alogue. . 


For Bicycles, Guns, Typewriters, Etc. 
Cleans. Lubricates. Prevents Rust. 

Ask your dealer for it. Sample bottle free. 
Send 2c. stamp for postage . 

G. W. COLE & CO., (room n) 111 D’WAY, N. Y. 




TKUSOOTT BOAT MFG. CO., Drawer G, St. .Joseph, Michigan 


©peraphone 

with it every word from the stage or platform can he heard in perfectly ■ 

* ^ _ Y xY.. *»♦- ri y-v 4? 4- V-» y. rpV., *■ ^ y 


The 


natural tones, by those sitting in remote iiarts of the Theatre, Opera 
House, Lecture Room or Church. By using the OPKKAPH<>.\K , 
people hard of hearing can distinctly hear ordinary conversation 
at from 10 to 30 feet. Write for descriptive circular, price, etc. 

Compouiiil Mlcro-Audlplionc Co. Westfield, ^lass.U.S.^. 




LIPPINCOTT S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


JUST 

The Very Latest and Best - - 

BELMONT. 





LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 



.... Mechanically Perfect. 

HANOVER. 



Hanover/^ Men^s Model ♦ 

Ladies^ . 

Hanover Junior/^ Boys^ Model 
Girls^ . 


* Price^ $50*00 

* 50*00 

* 35*00 

* 35*00 


In order to meet the demand for a medium-priced wheel, we 
offer to our patrons the “ Hanover.” It is made by the most 
approved methods, and we guarantee it equal to any medium 
grade wheel in the market. 


DESCRIPTIVE CIRCULAR. 

PHILADELPHIA, PENNA. 







5 









P 






\0 








0 \ 




\P 


^■0 




0 





29 


How THE Dragon was Taken In. 


LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 







30 



LIPPINCOTT'8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


The Marlborough 



Camera 


REVERSIBLE SWING BACK 
RISING AND SWING FRONT 


5x7» fitted with Rapid Rectilinear Lens, B. & L. Shutter, and 
Two Double Holders, 5^60, ^ . p 

8 X 10, without lens and shutter .... 50. Illustrated 


50. 

6 ^x 8 >^, 45. 

5x7 35. 


Booklet. 


Send for Free Pamphlet of $5 and $8 Cameras 


PntnInOllO kinds of Cameras and all requisites Ckqq 

udiClIUhUu for photography, mailed on application. I ICu 


CLIMAX DRY PLATES 


They are quick 
and reliable. 


The International Annual, Vol. IX,, 100 illustrations, 80 
practical articles on photography, now ready. 

Price, 75 cents ; postage, 15 cents. 

E. & H. T. ANTHONY & CO., 

591 Broadway, New York. 




For Invitation and Fine Correspondence 
Pure Fibre — Delicate Surface, 

Perfect Writing Quality. 

Whiting Paper Company, 

150 Duane Street, New York. 
Philadelphia. Chicago. 

Mills — Holyoke, Mass. 

Largest product iu the World. 


THE SECRET 


Of a Good 
Complexion 


LIES IN THE USE OF 

Dr. Campbell’s Safe Arsenic Complexion Wafers 
and Fouid’s Medicated Arsenic Complexion Soap 

The only real Beautiiiers of the 
Complexion, Skin, and Form. 

These Wafers and Soap are simply 
wonderful for removing Freckles, 

Moth, Blackheads, Pimples, Vulgar 
Redness. Rough, Yellow, or Muddy 
Skin, and all other facial disfigure- 
ments. Wafers by mail, fl.OO; six 
boxes, $5.00. Soap by mail, 50 cents. 

SOLD BY ALL DRUGGISTS. 

Address all letters to 

H. B. FOIJLI), 214 Sixth Avenue, New York, 
Beware of all other “ so-called” Arsenic PREPARATIONS. 
DR. CAMPBELL’S WAFERS are the only genuine arsenic 
wafers made. 

FOULD’S ARSENIC SOAP is the only MEDICATED 
ARSENIC COMPLEXION SOAP in the world. 

CORRESPONDENCE STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. 




TI^PEWRITER3 MAKES 


All tiie cJtanaara iVlacJiines tor SALK or KENT at 
^HALF manufacturers’ prices. Full guarantee. 
.Express charges prepaid if this medium mentioned. 
Privilege of Examination. Write for catalogue. 

Typewriter Emporium, 


S oldiers , Sailors. Smokersi 

Enjoy using ARNICA TOOTH SOAP. 

It is so cooling and cleansing. Do you use it? If not 
try this peerless antiseptic dentifrice, 26c. all druggists 

1 'I ^ _ - _ A ^ ^ A ^ 


or by mail. C . H . 


Strong &Co.. CHICAGO. 

31 




LIPPINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


THE 



For Insurances on Lives and 
Granting Annuities, 

No. 517 Chestnut St.j PHILADELPHIA. 

(TRUST AND SAFE DEPOSIT COMPANY.) 
Incorporated March 10, 1812. Charter Perpetual. 

CAPITA I. . . . . . ^2,000,000 
SURPl.TS . . ^ . . 2,000,000 

Chartered to act as EXECUTOR, ADMINISTRA- 
TOR, TRUSTEE, GUARDIAN, ASSIGNEE, COM- 
MITTEE, RECEIVER, AGENT, etc.; and for the 
faithful performance of such duties all of its Capital 

and Surplus are liable. 

ALL TRUST INVESTMENTS ARE KEPT 
SEPARATE AND APART FROM THE ASSETS 

OF THE COMPANY. 

INCOME COLLEC TED A ND REMITTED. 

SPECIAL ATTENTION GIVEN TO THE CARE 
OF REAL ESTATE. 

INTEREST ALLOWED ON MONEY DEPOSITS. 

SAFES IN ITS BURGLAR- PROOF VAULTS 
FO R REN T. 

The protection of its Vaults for the preservation 
of WILLS offered gratuitously. 

Gold and Silver-Plate, Deeds, Mortgages, etc., re- 
ceived for safe-keeping under guarantee. 

HENRY N. PAUL, PRESIDENT. 

JARVIS MASON, TRUST OFFICER. 

L. C. CLEEMANN, ASS’T TRUST OFFICER. 
JOHN J. R. CRAVEN, SECRETARY. 

C. S. W. PACKARD, TREASURER. 

WM. L. BROWN, Asst Treasurer. 


the most insurance 

For the 

LEAST MONEY 

Is obtained by the 

NEW FIFTY-FIVE YEAR TERMINAT 
INQ LIFE POLICY. 

Issued by 



This is the lowest possible Cost Insur- 
ance, and is for Business Men and the 
very best Class of the Insuring Public. 

Over i8,ooo Policy Holders. 

LARGE SURPLUS. 




Lindley Smyth, 

Henry N. Paul, 
Alexander Biddle, 
Anthony J. Antelo, 
Charles W. Wharton, 
Edward H. Coates, 

Robert I 


William W. Justice, 
Craige Lippi ncott, 
Edward S. Buckley, 
Beauveau Borie, 
Eugene Delano, 
Edward Morrell, 
Lewis. 


Write for rates and particulars. 

WM. E. MOSES, Sec. 


Women and Money. 

For profitable purchase of securities on margin, or 
change of present investments for larger income, 
women should communicate with or visit the Wo- 
man’s Department of The Monetary Trust, oflSces 
No. 44 West 34th Street, New York, exclusively for 
women. By constant communication over private 
wires. President Oarley and experienced associates 
will guide each customer, and reduce their advice to 
writing, when desired, so the client can consult her 
banker. With present financial conditions, and such 
guardianship, women may wisely exercise courage in 
using money. Interesting information on applica- 
tion. 

MIRIAM BERGER, Manager. 


FRANKLIN 

PIINTINC INK WORKS 

JOHN WOODRUFF’S SONS 
1317 SI**! 1219 Cherry St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

This Magazine is printed with .John WoodrufTs Sons* Inks. 

7nn nnn GiviNlir. 

f IJIJ 1111 11 Send 4 cents in stamps for some of them. 
J WW f WWW J D JOHNSTON, NEWPORT, R. I. 


LEAD PENCILS, 

penholders, steel and RUBBER ERASERS, 
RUBBER BANDS, RULERS, Etc. 

New York. EBERHARD FABER. Chicago. 



LIPPINCOTT'8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


(Notice this to-day. This ad. may not appear again.) 

$100 GIVEN 

IN 

GOLD AWAY 

Who can form the greatest number of words from the 
letters in RELIABILITY? You can make twenty or more 
words, we feel sure, and if you do you will receive a good 
reward. Do not use any letter more times than it appears in 
the word. Use no language except English. Words spelled 
alike, but with different meaning, can be used but once. Use 
anv dictionary. Pronouns, nouns, verbs, adverbs, prefixes, 
sutexes, adjectives, proper nouns allowed. Anything that 
is a legitimate word will be allowed. Work it out in this 
manner : Rat, let, lye, lie, liable, bit, bite, bet, bat, etc. Use 
these words in your list. The publishers of Woman’s World 
AND Jenness Miller Monthly will pay $20.00 in gold to the 
person able to make the largest list of words from the letters 
in the word RELIABILITY ; $10.00 for the second ; $5.00 for 
the third; $5.00 for the fourth; and $2.00 each for the thirty 
next largest lists. The above rewards are given free and 
without consideration for the purpose of attracting atten- 
tion to our handsome woman’s magazine, thirty-six pages, 
one hundred and forty-four long columns, finely illustrated, 
and all original matter, long and short stories by the best 
authors ; price, $1.00 per year. To enter the contest, it is 
necessary for you to send 25 cents in stamps or silver for a 
three months’ trial subscription with your list of words, and 
every person sending the 25 cents and a list of twenty words 
or more is guaranteed an extra present by return mail (in 
addition to the magazine), of a 188-page book, “Treasure 
Island,” by Robert Louis Stevenson, a fascinating story of 
love and thrilling adventure. Satisfaction guaranteed in 
every case or money refunded. Lists should be sent at 
once, and not later than May 15. The names and addresses 
of successful contestants will be printed in June issue, pub- 
lished in May. Our publication has been established ten 
years. We refer you to any mercantile agency for our stand- 
ing. Make your list now. Address WOMAN’S WORLD 
PUBLISHING CO., 225-6-7 Temple Court Building, New 
York City. 



1 greatly prefer the 
Electropoise to Any 
An<l All Agencies for 
the (ure of tbe sick 
of wbicb 1 IjAve Any , 
knowledge/' 

c. COL.EGROVE, r\. D., 
Hollao«I, N. Y. 

cilRES wTlHoir MEDiONE 





PRICE Book by mail (free) to any address, telling all 
about this self-applied oxygen remedy, and 
A V-F why it often cures cases pronounced “incurable,” 

Electrollbration Co., 1133 B’dway, NT. Y. 





DEAFNESS 

and Head Noises relieved by using 
Wilson’s Common Sense Ear Drums. 

New scientific invention; different 
from all other devices. The on ly safe, 
simple, comfortable eaxd invisible 
Ear Drum in the world. Helps where 
medical skill fails. No wire or string 
attachment. Write for pamphlet. 

WILSON EAR DRUM CO., 
147 Trust Bldg., Louisville, Ky. 

1122 Broadway, [Room 163J New York. 


MEW POWERS unfold grand possibilities in your phvsi- 
^ ^ cal, mental, and spiritual nature, thus assuring health, 
wealth, and happiness. Valuable information free. 

PROF. ANDERSON, L. P. 57, Masonic Temple, Chicago. 


The Wabash Railroad 

THE POPULAR LINE 

TO 

Chicago^ St. Louis^ Kansas City^ Omaha^ 
Denver^ San Francisco^ 

And all points West, Northwest, and Southwest. 

The ONLY Through Sleeping Car Line from New York 
and Boston to St. Louis via Niagara Falls. 

Through Sleeping Cars from New York and Boston 
to Chicago. 

Through Sleeper, St. Louis to Los Angeles, every 
Wednesday and Saturday. 

Stop-off Privilege at Niagara Falls 

from One to Ten Days. ' 
For information in regard to rates, etc., apply to 
H. B. McClellan, Oen. East. Agent, ^ 

387 Broadway, New York. 




WHY 

we sell 

Superior 
Phsetons 

at much 
lower prices 

than any other firm in the world is explained in 
our Art Catalogue. Send for it! 

The above cut illustrates one of our popular styles. A low 
priced Phaeton, with beauty, grace and strength. Can be 
fitted (if desired) with ball-bearing axles and rubber tires. 

Columbus PhSdt on Co., Columbus, O. 


33 


How THE Dragon was Taken In. — Continued. 



34 


LIPPINCOTT'8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


Finish Floors 


with biquid Granite, the 
best *Tloor Finish*' made# Quick 
drying, tough and durable# Write for 
finished specimens of wood and inters 
esting pamphlets telling all about it 
They will be sent you free# 

In finishing "or refinishing your 
homes, remember, BERRY BROTHERS' 
ARCHITECTURAL FINISHES produce the 
finest finish attainable on wood# 

If interested drop us a line, it will pay you# 

BERRY BROTHERS, Limited, 

Varnish Manufacturers. 

NEW YORK, 252 Pearl St. BOSTON, 42 Pearl St. 
CHICAGO. 15 and 17 Lake St. CINCINNATI, 304 Main St. 
SAN FRANCISCO, ST. LOUIS, 

709 and 711 Front St. 704 N. Fourth St. 

PHILADELPHIA, BALTIMORE, 

26 and 28 N, Fourth St. 22 East Lombard St. 

ractoryand main office, Detroit, 



When the Shade 
goes all awry 


' ; and refuses to go up or down, it is the fault 
: of the roller. There is only one roller that 
; never gives any trouble, that acts right 
under all circumstances. If you want that 
: kind, ask for and see that you 

GET THE GENUINE 

Hartshorn 
Shade Roller 

with the Stewart Hartshorn autograph on 
: label. The Improved Hartshorn rollers have 
holders for the shade, requiring no tacks. 

iwOOD ROLLERS. TIN ROLLERS. 


WE HAVE NO AGENTS 



but have sold direct to the 
consumer for 24 years, at 
wholesale prices, saving 
them the dealers’ pro- 
fits. Ship anywhere 
for examination be- 
fore sale. Every- 
thing warranted. 

100 styles of Car- 
riagesj^ styles of Har- 
dness. Top Buggies as low 
as |35. Phaetons as low 

_ as $55. Spring Wagons, 

No.37^. Surrey Harness— Price f 15,00. Road Wagons, etc. Send No. 606. Surrey— Price with curtains, lamps, sun- 
As good as sells for $22.00. for large, free Catalogue, shade, apron and fenders, $60. As good as sells for $90. 

ELKHART CARRIAGE AND HARNESS MFG. CO., W. B. PRATT, Sec’y, ELKHART, IND. 







Special 60 Days Offer 


to introduce our latest, large, powerful 
Achromatic Telescope, THE EXCELSIOR. 


Positively 

such a good 
Telescope was 
never sold for 
this price be- 
fore. 

These Tele- 
s copes are 
made by one D««nik 
of the largest 



Mile! 


ON SEA farm 


RANCH 


Europe, measure closed 1 3 inches and open over ft 1 -3 feet, in .** sections. They are brass bound, brass 
on each end to exclude dust, etc., with powerlbl lenses, scientifically ground and adjusted. Guaranteed by 
•^*** Heretofore, telescopes of this size have been sold for from $5.00 to $S.OO. Every sojourner in the country 
or ai seasiae resorts should certainly secure one of these instruments, and no farmer should he without one. Objects miles away 
are brought to view with astonishing clearness. Sent by mail or express, safely packed, prepaid for only OO cts. Our new 
catalogue of Watches, etc., sent with each order. This is a grand offer and you should not miss it. We warrant each 
Telescopejnst as represented or money refunded. Wants Another:— Brandy, Va.— Gents— Please send another Telescope, 
money enclosed. Other was a bargain, good as instrument costing many times the money.— R. C. Allen. Send »D cents by 

r Registered Letter, Post Office Money Order, Express Money Order, or Bank Draft payable to our order, or have your store- 
per or newsdealer order for you. Address 

EXCELSIOR IMPORTING COMPANY, Dept. 58, 111 Nassau Street, New York City, Box 783. 




How THE Dragon was Taken In.— C ontinued. 


LIPPINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 



36 



LIPPINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 



Primed ma$b fabrics 

— in superb assortment. Such wealth of exquisite 
color beauty and such a diversion of airy weaves 
have been unknown heretofore. Prices invariably 
are much below values : 

FRENCH ORGANDIES — satin stripe, with floral 
flgures in light and dark effects and colorings pro- 
duced by the best foreign printers. 

PRINTED IRISH DIMITIES— in this popular fab 
ric we are constantly receiving new, effectives styles 
and colorings from the leading Irish makers. 


m 

m 

VM 

VMM 

VM>m 

VMM 

VMM 

VMM 

PI 

VMM 

VMM 

VMM 


PLISSE d’ARGENT— -an entirely new fabric this ^§^1 


season, with a crinkle metal stripe, a beautiful weave. 

SILK-AND=LINEN TISSUE AND CHIFFON— white ground with fine 
silk stripes of different colors ; very dainty. 

BICYCLING LINENS AND CRASHES — fancy and plain weaves, ser- 
viceable, will be more popular this season than ever. 

Samples mailed to any address upon request. 

STRAWBRIDQE & CLOTHIER, Philadelphia. 


VM>M 

m 

a 

V/M 

m 
m 

ii 

m 




ono 



DRESS 

SHIELDS 


Do just what is required of 
them — shield the dress from 
perspiration. Some dress 
shields do more — they 
give out an olfensive 
odor. Others are 
heavy, cumber- 
some. OMO 
Dress Shields 
will outwear either 
rubber or stockinet 
shields, are abso- 
lutely odorless and 'nV/ 
lighter by half. W/) 
Trial pair 25c. MfK 

0M0MFG.C0. w 

394 CANAL STREET W 
NEW YORK. ^ 0 ;^ 




BEST BBT IDOL 


iddress Air Brush Mfg. Co. 

1025, Rockford, 111. 




37 





How THE Dragon was Taken In.— Continued 


LIPPINCO Tl" S MA GA ZINE A D VER TISER. 



38 



LIPFINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


Blindness Prevented!! 

There Should be no Waiting to be Blind. 

The Absorption Treatment a Heaven-sent Blessing to Those Upon Whom 

Blindness is Approaching, 

The Rev. S. M. Haskins, D.D., Rector of St. Marks, Brooklyn, N. Y., 

^rrites : — “The first Sunday after I came home I read the Gospel from 
the Chancel, then I called the attention of the Congregation to the fact 
that it vas the first time they had heard me read it for three months, and 
I assured them that I felt truly thankful we had such an institution as 
yours in this country. It was already calling down the blessings of thou- 
sands upon your head. I hoped that everyone afflicted with diseased eyes 
would visit your Institution. I enjoyed my stay at the Sanitarium. 

Everything is done for comfort and pleasure.*’ 

The Rev. B. N. Palmer, D.D., of New Orleans, La., writes an inves- 
tigator regarding the above treatment : “ Almost by every mail I receive 
letters of inquiry as to my experience of the treatment of my eyes. His 
theory is rational, based upon the self-restoring power of nature herself. 

Medicine cures only by rousing a peccant organ to the performance of 

its duty, when disease is thrown off and the patient recovers. The eye, ^ ^ bemis 

he things, should form no exception. His aim, therefore, is to stimulate eye specialist’— originator of 
the eve, promote its secretions and increase the circulation, thus revitaliz- the absorption treatment. 
ing the eye and enabling it to fulfil its functions, it throws off all the troubles and repairs its own 
waste. His method is simple, safe, in no way unpleasant, without disfigurement.” 

A. B. Colvin, Treas. of the State of New York, and a resident of Glens Falls, writes: — 
“ . . . The history of this institution and its advance by marvelous strides is well known to all of 
us. It has been one of the most remarkable and successful projects ever essayed in Glens Falls. The 
entire credit belongs to Edward H. Bemis, the eye specialist, whose success has been well-nigh 
miraculous, and remarkable ability in his field of labor and wonderful energy have brought about the re- 
sults so familiar, not only to residents of Glens Falls, but to hundreds, perhaps better thousands, of 
afflicted ones all over the United States and in many foreign lands. May the work which is benefiting 
all of us, continue, and God speed him. ...” 

Pamphlet Free Explaining the Cause of impaired Vision and Diseased Eyes, and Treatment at Home and at 
THE BEMIS EYE SANITARIUM, - = GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK. 



Recognized Tj’cide Roper of the [j'lteror^ (Jraft. 



$tiia $ix mn tor Sample €oi^. 


in^pnaHonal 


an miustratcD 
nHontblB 

Znagaztne 

Bright 
Crisp 

Manbsome 

Cen Cents a Copi? 
®ne 2>oUar a 13ear 

SenO 7c tn Stamp5 
for Sample Copp . . 

mnfon Comfidnia 

358 ISeavboirtt (ElMcaQO, Hfl.. S* 



39 




How THE Dragon was Taken In.— Continued. 


LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 



40 



LIFPINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 




•''ksSx.;* 

jifesilSB 


. acknowledged DV 
"Stenographers, Buse ^ 

EmNESS AND PrWE^5!ONAL 
^SMEN A5*THE VoiTifWO , 
^5 iACH!NE POfSESlING^ 

f e^jBE5 J VALUE-^ 

puPEWOU ,.WJ 'EXCEUSIVE- 
f P»WT5 Fa’PlaineoWOur 

.'_TYPi-:wmTEiiXoAiR<Bfi#«5 




I Cameras 


ALL STYLES— LOWEST PRICES 
EVERYTHING PHOTOGRAPHIC 

At oter '^y iEJTF STORJE? 

Nos, 60 and 62 East 11 ih Street, 

(Five doors from Broadway.) 

The Scovill dp Adams Co. of New- York. 

W. I. LINCOLN ADAMS, President. 

Send 35c. for a Sample Number of the Photographic Times, 
containing about loo handsome photographic illustrations. 


gZ5ZPHF2FHEE5HaH7WHFPZ5Z2gHZ^ 


I 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

i 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

I 

i 

1 

Kl 


Pi Bleisles 

On Face, Neck, and Arms Removed instantly 
and forever, at the first touch of 

PADONA 

hair vanishes like mist before the 
rising sun. Roots of the hair 
wither and die, making a new 
growth impossible; leaving the 
skin soft, white, and beautiful. 
Easily applied, certain to cure, 
and harmless as dew. SIOOO Forfeit up for any case of 
failure or where there is the slightest trace of injury. Used 
by thousands of persons of refinement. Padona is sent by 
mail, postpaid, in safety mailing-cases, securely sealed, on 
receipt of $1 per box. Safe delivery of your letter insured 
by registering it at postoffice. All correspondence regarded 
strictly confidential. Mention Lippincott’s. Descriptive 
booklet of Padona and other high-class toilet articles, free. 
The Padona Company, Cincinnati, 0., U. S. A. 




For Eating ftOrinKitg 


Pupi"^ of Material 
Deliciousness of 
Fiav orUnexce lled 

fbrSale atourStores & by (irocens 






MENNEN’S borated talcum 


TOILET 
POWDER 

Approved by Highest Med- 
ical Authorities for the use 
of infants and adults. 

MENNEN’S” 


fe. 


is the original ; others are imitations, 
and liable to do harm. 

Positive relief for all afTentions of the skin. De- 
lightful after shaving. Take no substitute. Sold 
by druggists, or mailed for 25 cents. 

Name this magazine. Samples 

GERHARD ItlENNEN CO., Newark, N. J. ^ 


41 


LIPPINCOTT’S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


Health ! Rest ! Comfort ! 



3ack5on Sanatorium, 

Dansville, Livingston County, N. Y. 

Established in 1858 . Most beautiful and commodious Fire- 
Proof Building in the world, used as a Health Institution. 
All forms of iiydro-therapeutics, massage, rest cure; elec- 
tricity administered by skilled attendants. A staff of reg- 
ular physicians of large experience; accommodations and 
service of highest class. Superior cuisine, directed by 
Emma P. Ewing, teacher of cooking at Chautauqua. Do 
not fail to write for illustrated literature and terms, if seek- 
ing health or rest. 

J. Arthur Jackson, M.D., Secretary, 

Box 2002. 


OXYDONOR 

Vigorous Health 
From the Air, by 
the Use of the 
Oxydonor 

Any intelligent child can by self-treatment with the 
OXYDONOR easily, quickly, certainly, and without cost 
or medicine, during sleep, obtain the most vigorous 
health, from almost any condition and any disease, by 
the use of the OXYDONOR. It is as simple as breathing. 

The above illustration shows form and manner of ap- 
plying this life-saving, simple instrument. It generates 
a strong affinity for OXYGEN in the human body, which 
causes the Oxygen of the air to be rapidly absorbed. 
Rapid absorption of Oxygen proves self-sufficient to 
produce all above results. 

A million and a half of the most intelligent of all 
classes of educated persons in all countries now depend 
on the OXYDONOR exclusively for health under all 
circumstances, and would have no other means. Each 
OXYDONOR is guaranteed, in the sum of one thousand 
dollars, to be capable of causing the cure of any disease 
at any reasonable stage in the manner above stated. 
Book of particulars, and a book of Grat^ul Reports from 
users of the OXYDONOR, and price-list, sent free to any 
address. 

The Rev. Chas. A. Budlong, Ashaway, R. I., say : “ I 
have used Oxydonor ‘ Victory’ for several years past, and 
with the most beneficial results. I recommend its use 
to all brain-workers especially. You may use the above 
statement in any manner you desire.” 

DR. H. SANCHE & CO., 

261 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY. 

61 FIFTH ST., COR. FORT, DETROIT, MICH. 




EASY SHAVING 


AND SAFE. 


You cannot cut yourself. Any ordinary razor 
can now in an instant be changed into the finest 
safety shaving device ever invented. 

m DIAMOND RAZOR SAFETY 

E rovides perfect protection against cutting, niid all dangers attending the use of a 
are razor. Easily applied. No new tricks to learn. Holds the razorat the correct 
angle and protects its edge. Will shave close without 
irritating the skin. Sent everywhere on receipt of price. 

1CV£R¥ I.ARY OR AOENTwho will sell one 
doz. of our Diamond Razor Safeties, Scissors or Knife 
Sharpeners to their friends will be given FREE any 
goods in our Mammoth Catalogue to the amount of 
$1.50. These goods are easy to sell. Fred’k Udy says : 

“ Enclosed find order for goods. In 5 days this week I 
sold 80 sharpeners, 9 pairs shears, 2 sets spoons and 2 sets 
knives and forks. The goods are fast sellers.” Send for 
catalogue and special offers. It will pay you. Address, 

OlAMONO CUTLERY GO., 58-62 Broadway, New York City. 




« For Beautifviniar the Complexion. 

Icemoves all Freckles, Tan, Sunburn, Pimples, Liver 
Moles, and other imperfections. Not covering but remove 
ing all blemishes, and permanently restoring the com- 
plexion to its original freshness. I’or sale at Druggists, or 
sent postpaid on receipt of .50c. Use I n,.*# I UnkAri 
MALVINA ICKTH YOL SOAP nOl.I.HUDSri 
2o Ceuta a Cake* I TODEDO* Oi 


ANGORA 

KITTENS 

4‘2 


Lot of beautiful kittens in exquisite col- 
ors; charming manners and dispositions: 
finest stock in America; all ages and col- 
ors. Circular. Walnut Ridge Farms, 
Box 2144 , Boston, Mass. 



Mme. CAROLINE, 

Face and Hair Specialist. 

The Ne Plus Ultra Face Beautifier will 
positively remove wrinkles, tan, freckles, 
blackheads, liver spots, and all facial 
blemishes. I also keep dainty creams, 
flesh foods, and beauty soap, to be used 
in combination with the lotion, aiding it 

greatly in attaining the desired results. 

The Koyai vVindsor French Hair Restorer is not a dye, but 
restores gray hairs to its original color. Send for free sealed 
circulars containing testimonials and price-list. 

. / 223 Sixth Avenue, New York, and 
Parlors. Clinton Avenue, Albany. 


sKiDrIMkClillSilWEWATER 



LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ADVERTISEli. 


Buffalo 
Lithia 

Disintegrates, Breaks Down and Eliminates Stone of the Kidneys or Bladder, 
Both Uric Acid and Phosphatic Formations. Its Value in Bright’s 

Disease, Gout, Etc. 

ANALYSIS AND KEPOKT OF 

DR. A. GABRIEL POUCHET 





Professor of Pharmacology and Materia Medica of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris. Direc- 
tor of the Laboratory of the Consulting Committee of 
Fhiblic Hygiene of France. Dr. Pouchet, in express 
terms advises the use of Buffalo Lithia Water. 

“Paris, February, 12, 1897. 

“ The collections of disintegrated or broken down vesical 
or renal calculi which form the subject of the following analysis 
and researches, were sent me by Doctor Edward Chambers Laird, 
resident physician Buffalo kithia Spring's, Virginia, U. S. A. 
They were discharged by «lifferent patients after tlie use 
of the mineral water of Buffalo Lithia Spring No. 2 for 
a variable time. 

1 advise here, from the experience of Boctor Laird, 
the use of this mineral water, which has had with him a 
happy influence on the disintegration of the calculi and 
their elimination. It is to demonstrate this that he has 
requested me to make this analysis. 

“The collections of 
the disintegrated cal- 
culi submitted to my 
examination were eight 
in number. A frag- 
ment of each collection 
has been reproduced by 
photographs, which are 
designated by the same 
letters of the alphabet 

(Calculi “A” magiiiiied 13 diameters. analysis here fol- 

lowing : 

(Specimen of Caecuei “A” Magnified 13 Diameters.) 

“These disintegrated renal calculi are very numerous, and 
present themselves in the forms of grains of various sizes {from that of 
the size of a pin to that of a pea) of reddish yellow color, very hard and 
nucleus in the centre. They are thus composed: Urate of Ammonia 
— for the greater part ; Free Uric Acid — small quantity; Carbonate of 
Ammonia and Magnesia— small quantity. 

(Calculus “C” Magnified 30 Diameters.) 

“Vesical calculus reduced to crystalline powder, gran- 
ular ; of a greyish white color, rather friable. Chemical composition : 

Phosphate of Ammonia and Magnesia— for the greater part. Car- 
bonate of Lime— small quantity. Oxalate of Lime— very small quan- 

tity. (feigned) A. GABRIEL POUCHET.” (Calculus “ C” magnified 30 diameters.) 

{A portion of report omitted for lack of space.) 


According to distinguished Medical authority, Uric Acid Poisoning shows itself in Gout, Rheu- 
matism, Lithaemia, Stone of the Kidneys and Bladder, Bright’s Disease of the Kidneys, Herpeti- 
form Neuralgic Affections, Nervous Prostration, Nervous Irritability, Nervous Asthma, Nervous 
Headache, cases of Mental Depression, and in certain forms of Dyspepsia and Eczema. 

BUFFALO Lithia Water dissolves and washes out of the system Uric Acid Deposit, 

and is Nature’s own specific for these and all troubles of Uric Acid origin. 

Taken as a common beverage or table water it acts as a preventive of Uric Acid deposit, and 
of the distressing maladies caused by such deposit. 

Burmo tlTHIAWAllR 

is for sale by Grocers and Druggists generally. Pamphlets on application. 

PROPRIETOR, BUFFALO LITHIA SPRINGS, VA. 


43 



How THE Dragon was Taken In— C oncluded. 


LIPPIXCO TT'S MA GA ZINE A D VER TJi^ER. 



44 : 


BIBLES AND PRAYER=BOOKS. 


Oxford Sunday-School Teachers* Edi- 
tions with Illustrations. 

Pearl Type. 

Size, 5^x4 inches. Egyptian seal, flexible, 
round corners, gilt edges. Published at 
$1.25 ; now 75 cents ; by mail, 86 cents. 

Ruby Type. 

Size, 5^ x4 inches. French seal, flexible, 
round corners, gilt edges. Published at 
$1.75 ; our price, 90 cents; by mail, $1.03. 
Levant morocco, divinity circuit, calf lined, 
silk sewed, red under gold edges, round 
corners. Published at $4.50; now $2.75; 
by mail, $2.89. Persian Levant, divinity 
circuit, leather lined, red under gold edges. 
Printed on India thin paper ; only one inch 
in thickness. Published at $ 4 . 50 ; now 
^2.50 ; by mail, $ 2 . 61 . 

Nonpareil Type. 

Size, 4 } 4 , X 7 inches. Levant morocco, di- 
vinity circuit, calf lined, silk sewed, round 
corners, red under gold edges. Published at 
$5.50; now $3.75 ; by mail, $3.94. Same 
as above, printed on India thin paper. Pub- 
lished at ^7.50; now $ 4 . 40 ] by mail, $4-53- 

Emerald Type. 

Size, 4 % X 6^ inches. Levant morocco, 
divinity circuit, calf lined, silk sewed, round 
corners, red under gold edges. Printed on 
India thin paper. Published at ^7. 50 ; now 
$4.40; by mail, $4.54. Same as above, 
superfine, levant morocco. Published at 
j!9.oo ; now $5.40 ; by mail, $5.54. 

Minion Type. 

Size, 5x7^ inches. Levant morocco, di- 
vinity circuit, calf lined, silk sewed, round 


corners, red under gold edges. Published 
at $5.85 ; now ^4.00 ; by mail, $4.23. Same 
as above, printed on India thin paper, only 
one inch in thickness. Published at $8.50 ; 
now $5.25 ; by mail, ^5.42. 

Long Primer Type. 

Size, SX ^ inches. Levant morocco, 
divinity circuit, calf lined, silk sewed, round 
corners, red under gold edges. Published at 
$7.50; now $5.00; by mail, $5.28. 


The Bagster. Comprehensive Teachers* 
Bible. 

Minion Type. 

Size, 8X X 5X X I inch. French morocco, 
divinity circuit, gold edges, round corners, 
containing upward of 300 pages of invalua- 
ble helps to Bible study. Now $1.25 ; by 
mail, ^^1.43* 

The Holman Self-Pronouncing Sun- 
day-School Teachers’ Bible. 

Minion type, size, 5 x 7X x iX inches. 
French morocco, divinity circuit, round cor- 
ners, red under gold edges, 324 pages of 
helps to the study of the Bible, which con- 
form to those of the famous Oxford edition. 
Now $ 1.60 \ by mail, $1.79. 

Episcopal Prayer-Book. 

Long primer type, size, SX ^ 3M^ inches, 
cloth, white edge. The 3 5 -cent Oxford edi- 
tion. Now 20 cents ; by mail, 25 cents. 

The Hymnal 

to match. 55-cent Oxford edition. Now 
25 cents ; by mail, 31 cents. 


Standard Edition of Popular Sets. 

Well Printed on Good Paper. i2mo. Cloth, Gilt Tops, Gilt Titles. 


Marie Corelli. 

5 vols. Published at ^3.75 ; now $1.75. 

Cooper’s Sea Tales. 

5 vols. Published at $3.25 ; now $1.75. 

Macaulay’s History of England. 

5 vols. Published at ^3.75 ; now $1.75. 

Macaulay’s Essays and Poems. 

3 vols. Published at $3.75 ; now $1.15. 

W. Heimburg. 

(Translations from the German.) Illustrated. 
Published at $5.00 ; now $1.75. 


Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help Series. 

4 vols. Published at ^3.75 ; now j^i.75. 

Wm. Shakespeare Complete. 

4 vols. Published at ^3.75 ; now ^1.40. 

A. Conan Doyle. 

5 vols. Published at $3.75 ; now ^1.75. 

The Year’s Art 

(The Quarterly Illustrator). From January 
’93 to September ’95 — 4,613 finely executed 
illustrations by the world’s most famous ar- 
tists. Text carefully printed on superfine 
paper. 5 volumes, containing 1,920 octavo 
pages, and bound in buckram cloth, $ 2 . 50 a 
set. 


New York. 

46 


JOHN WANAMAKER, 

Philadelphia. 


LIPPINCOTT'8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 


GET THE BEST. 

The extraordinary sale and 
continued popularity of the 

Paul E. Wirt Fountain Pen 

is positive proof that the long-felt want of a writing 
public for a practical and satisfactory writing instru- 
ment has at last been supplied. 

The Standard. Over One Million Sold. 

Send for Catalogue. BLOOMSBURG, PA» 



Manufactory Established 1761. 


LEAD PENCILS, COLORED PENCILS, SLATE PENCILS, WRITING SLATES, 
STEEL PENS, GOLD PENS, INKS, PENCIL CASES IN SILVER AND 
IN GOLD. STATIONERS’ RUBBER GOODS, RULERS, 

COLORS AND ARTISTS’ MATERIALS. 


78 Reade Street, 


New York, N. Y. 


MAXUFACXOItY BSXABUSHBD 1761. 
GOODS SOLD BY ALL STATIONERS. 




rl^ 

rl^ 


DO GOOD PRINTING 

with ease and at small expense 
... by using the best Inks. . . . 

THEY ARE MADE BY 

The AULT & WIBORG COMPANY, 

the largest manufacturers of Fine Printing and 
Lithographic Inks, Dry Colors and Varnishes 
in America. 


They arc used by the Leading Printers and Lithographers throughout the Union. 
Specimen Books and Prices on application. 


Or, 

The Ault & Wibofg Company, 

Cincinnati, Ohio, and Chicago, 111. 


Ault & Wiborg, 

68 Beekman St., New York. 

G. S. BROWNELL, Resident Partner. 


♦ 

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t 

t 

<lk 

Sk 

Sk 

Hk 

(fk 

Hk 

Hk 


46 


«Uacdtion Dap» 

ffl N the lake regfions of Winconsin, Northern 
^ Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and South 
Dakota, along the lines of 

'^MaWAUKE^i 

^°§tPAVt 

^Vc 


are hundreds of charming localities pre-emi- 
nently fitted for summer homes, nearly all of 
which are located on or near lakes which have 
not been fished out. These resorts range in 
variety from the “full dress for dinner” to 
the flannel shirt costume for every meal. If 
you are planning a vacation trip for the com- 
ing summer, send a two-cent stamp for a copy 
of “ Vacation Days, ” giving description of the 
country traversed by the lines of the Chicago, 
Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway, and a list 
of summer hotels and boarding houses, with 
rates for board, to 

GEO. H. HEAFFORD, 

General Passenger Agent. CHICAGO) ILL. 



tDorksI 




for little or noth- 
ing. Superb half 
tone engravings 
of Colorado’s most beauti- 
ful and impressive scenery, 
in gold embossed papier- 
mache frames, Five Cents, 
in stamps, each, or the 
entire set of 12 pictures 
for Fifty Cents, stamps. 

Address 

B. L. WINCHELL, 

Qen. Pass. Agent U. P. D. & Q, Ry., 
DENVER. COLORADO. 




The World^s Best Music 

Thousands of Well-Arranged Selections 
at the Cost of Ordinary Sheet Music. 


Grand Opera 
I^tgbt Opera 
6acred .JMfusic 
popular Songs 
Stirring Dances 


Played with rare bril- 
liancy and expression 
by means of indestruc- 
tible metal discs that 
can be changed at will. 


The Criterion American Music Box is the finest exam- 
ple of music box construction yet produced, so simple 
that any child can manage it, and yielding a wealth* of 
amusement and pleasure that only its possessors can ap- 
preciate. 

$14, $25, $45, $70, $90. 

Tune Sheets, from 25c. to 60c. Send for Descriptive Catalogue. 

paillard ^ Co*, 680 BVa)>, 

FACTORIES; JOBBERS AND WHOLESALE 

Switzerlandand Jersey City. DEALERS SUPPLIED. 



** Knickerbocker Special 


Bnwxn 

8T. LOUIS, INDIANAPOLIS, CINCINNATI, CLEVELAND, 
NEW YORK AND BOSTON. 

“ Southwestern Limited ” 

BITtntIN 

CINCINNATI, COLUMBUS, CLEVELAND, 

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CINCINNATI, LOUISVILLE, INDIANAPOLIS AND CHICAGO. 

M. E. INGALLS, E. 0. McCORMICK, D. B. MARTIN, 

President. Pass. Traffio Mgr. Gon. Pass, ft Tkt. hfi' 





Cures while 
you Sleep 



Whooping Cough, 
Asthma, Catarrh, 

Descriptive pamphlet free. 

CrOU p Vapo-Cresolene Co., 69 Wall 8t , X Y. 



POWDER 

Absolutely Pure. 

Celebrated for its great leavening 
strength and healthfulness. Assures the 
food against alum and all forms of adul- 
teration common to the cheap brands. 
ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO., NEW YORK. 








POSTUM 

CEREAL 


FOOD COFFEE. 



Unnatural food and drink gradually 
undermine the stomach and the nerv- 
ous system, and somewhere in the body 
tlie trouble shows. Many diseases are 
caused by stomach and nervous dis- 
order, and they cannot exist when 
stomach and nerves work properly. 

Coffee is a polished villain that has 
undermined millions of systems. Some 
can and some cannot use it. Hundreds 
of thousands of stomachs have been 
made well and healthy after years of 
distress when coffee was abandoned and 
POSXUW CKRKAl^ POOD 
COFFKE used at meals. Postum 
is made of Nature’s grains. 

Rebuke the cook who does not make it 
black as Mocha, and boil it 15 minutes. 

Insist on buying Postum with the 
above seal in red on tlie package. 


POSTUM CHRKAU, CO. (Mil.)* 
Battle Creek, Mlcti. 







whlvasto^ttkre^ 
and yoii kiwe - 

perfectly formed 
cakes of convenient 
size for tke toilet. 



e 

The Prooter & Gamble Oo., Oin'ti. 


made by 

Waiter Baker & Co. Ltd., 

ESTABLISHED IN 1780, 

at Dorchesteff Mass* 

Has the well-known 

YELLOW 
LABEL 

on the front of every pack- 
age, and the trade-mark 

" La Belle Chocolatlere," 

on the back. 


/Monc other Genuine* 

Walter Baker & Co. Ltd., 

DORCHESTER, MASS. 


> au one vvoE-jitx'» vyoiuniKJiaiJi jiixposicion, ^nicag'O, and previously, at the 

P E N S ■ Paris ^Exposition in 1889. When you want a First-class Steel Pen ask for GILXiOTT’S. 












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